Global lockdown tightens as virus deaths mount
PARIS, France — Harsh lockdowns aimed at halting the march of the coronavirus pandemic extended worldwide Monday as the death toll soared past 37,500 amid new waves of US outbreaks.
Despite slivers of hope in stricken Italy and Spain, the tough measures that have confined some two-fifths of the globe's population to their homes were broadened.
Moscow and Lagos joined the roll call of cities around the globe with eerily empty streets, while Virginia and Maryland became the latest US states to announce emergency stay-at-home orders, followed quickly by the capital city Washington.
In a symbol of the scale of the challenge facing humanity, a US military medical ship sailed into New York to relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals bracing for the peak of the pandemic.
President Donald Trump sought to reassure Americans that authorities were ramping up distribution of desperately needed equipment like ventilators and personal protective gear.
He also offered a stark warning, saying "challenging times are ahead for the next 30 days" as he acknowledged mulling a potential nationwide stay-at-home order.
"We're sort of putting it all on the line," Trump said, likening the efforts against coronavirus as a "war."
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world topped 780,000, with 413,000 of those in Europe, while most of the confirmed deaths are also from the continent, according to an AFP tally.
World leaders — several of whom have been stricken or forced into isolation — are still grappling for ways to deal with a crisis that will have economic and social shockwaves unseen since World War II.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed "closer cooperation" and addressed plunging oil prices in a Monday call, the Kremlin said.
'Good for morale'
The US Navy's USNS Comfort, which has space for 1,000 beds and a dozen operating rooms, docked one day after Trump extended US social-distancing measures until the end of April.
"It will be good for morale," said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio of the arrival of the Comfort, which will help people requiring intensive care unrelated to coronavirus, easing the burden on hospitals.
In Russia, Putin urged residents of Moscow to "very seriously" respect a lockdown that has closed all non-essential shops, including restaurants.
Moscow's famed Red Square was deserted, and surrounding streets were quiet.
Anna, a 36-year-old web designer, said the lockdown would be hard for her and her five-year-old daughter. "But I don't want Arina to get sick," she told AFP on her way to buy bread. "So of course we will observe the quarantine."
Fears of spiking cases drove Moscow to follow Italy, Spain and France in imposing full lockdowns, and Europe remains the epicentre of the pandemic with the death toll there passing 26,500 on Monday, according to an AFP tally.
'Work continues'
After weeks of life spent under a national lockdown in Italy, signs were emerging that drastic action could slow the outbreak's spread.
Even though the country's death toll grew by 812 in 24 hours to 11,591, figures from the civil protection service showed the rate of new COVID-19 infections hitting a new low of just 4.1 percent and the number of people who had recovered reached a new high.
"The data are better but our work continues," said Giulio Gallera, the chief medical officer of Lombardy, Italy's worst-hit region.
Spain, which announced another 812 virus deaths in 24 hours, joined the United States and Italy in surpassing the number of cases in China, where the disease first emerged in December.
France reported its highest daily number of deaths since the outbreak began, saying 418 more people had succumbed in hospital.
Even as the US health system was stretched to the limit, Trump said he was ordering some excess medical equipment be sent to Italy, France and Spain.
'Nothing to eat'
Britain and Italy both warned recently that measures to prevent disease spread would be in place for months to come.
In Britain, COVID-19 has hit high profile figures including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Charles, who was out of virus isolation, according to royal officials.
In Israel, meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the latest world leader to enter isolation, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel's third coronavirus test came back negative.
The lockdowns are causing hardship across the world but particularly in impoverished cities in Africa and Asia.
Africa's biggest city, Lagos, joined the global stay-at-home from Monday, with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari ordering a two-week lockdown for its 20 million people. The measures also apply to the capital Abuja.
"Two weeks is too long. I don't know how we will cope," said student Abdul Rahim, 25, as he helped his sister sell food from a market stall.
Impoverished Zimbabwe also began enforcing a three-week lockdown.
"They need to be fed, but there is nothing to eat," vegetable vendor Irene Ruwisi said in the township of Mbare, pointing at her four grandchildren. "How do they expect us to survive?"
The shutdown has already put millions out of work and forced governments to rush through huge stimulus plans.
Experts in Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, said the virus would shrink output there this year by up to 5.4 percent.
In the US, more than two thirds of the population were under lockdown orders, as the number of confirmed coronavirus infections topped 160,000, a global high, and deaths neared 3,000.
"We are nowhere near over the hump," warned Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards. "We still have an awful lot of work to do to flatten the curve."
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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