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1.05am BST

In the United States, pool parties over Memorial Day weekend may have caused further outbreaks.

This from Associated press:

Health officials said Friday that they were seeking to inform mass numbers of unknown people after a person who attended crowded pool parties over Memorial Day weekend at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks tested positive for COVID-19.

Camden County Health Department said in a release that the resident of Boone County in mid-Missouri tested positive on Sunday after arriving at the lake area a day earlier. Officials said there have been no reported cases of the virus linked to coronavirus in residents of Camden County, where the parties seen in videos and photos posted on social media took place.

12.54am BST

Animal welfare groups say an Australian live sheep exporter should not be granted an exemption to allow it to ship sheep to the Middle East during the summer ban after crew members on its live export ship tested positive to Covid-19.

Australia’s new live export laws ban live sheep exports from 1 June to 14 September to prevent the mass deaths of sheep from heat stress during summer in the Gulf.

The majority of Australians remain opposed to this trade despite reassurances that the welfare of animals will be prioritised. If an exemption to newly minted laws to halt trade in the northern summer is granted, public confidence in the regulator will be shattered ... [It] would see this legislation fail at its first test and open the department to a flood of exemption requests.

As has happened on multiple previous occasions where this volatile trade has been disrupted, sheep can be held safely and comfortably in the feedlot where they are now, until they can be transported and slaughtered humanely in WA abattoirs.

The only financial impact will be on the multimillion-dollar companies that own these sheep, Kuwait Livestock Transport and Trading (KLTT) and its subsidiary Rural Exports and Trading WA (RETWA).

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from World news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3cgpySG