British PM in intensive care as virus toll soars
LONDON, United Kingdom — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to intensive care Monday as his condition worsened in a battle with the coronavirus, as the death toll from the pandemic hit grim new highs in Europe and the United States.
Johnson, the most prominent victim yet of the pandemic, deputized his foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to stand in for him, but remained conscious according to Downing Street.
The setback came as the death toll from the virus jumped in Western Europe and soared past 10,000 in the United States — taking the global toll past 73,000, out of more than 1.32 million confirmed cases.
In somber warnings from both sides of the Atlantic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the European Union was facing its "biggest test," while US officials said Americans should prepare for for an ordeal comparable to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Signs of a possible turnaround in Europe — where daily virus tolls have been falling — were dampened by a surge in deaths in both France and Italy on Monday, a record 833 in France, and 636 in Italy.
"We have not reached the end of the ascent of this epidemic,"said France's health minister, Olivier Veran.
Admitted to hospital 10 days ago with the disease, Britain's 55-year-old prime minister has not been able to shake it.
Johnson was transferred into intensive care as the country's death toll topped 5,000 -- an increase of 400 in a day.
"Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the prime minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital," said a Downing Street statement.
Light at the end?
There was also no evident respite in the United States, which has the world's highest number of recorded cases.
"This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans' lives, quite frankly," US Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News.
"This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it's not going to be localised."
At the epicentre of the US outbreak, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said daily deaths had been levelling off for the past two days, suggesting the crisis may be peaking -- but he extended a statewide shutdown, warning: "Now is not the time to be lax."
In Washington, meanwhile, President Donald Trump tweeted: "Light at the end of the tunnel."
'Critical situation'
The pandemic has reached almost every corner of the planet, confining nearly half of humanity to their homes and turning life upside down for more than four billion people, according to an AFP tally of populations under some form of lockdown.
Battling the two-pronged health and economic crisis, Tokyo announced an imminent state of emergency and a trillion-dollar stimulus package.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the country's hospitals face a "critical situation" with a rapid increases of new.
Italy likewise unveiled a record 400 billion euro ($430 billion) stimulus to help businesses hurt by a month-long national lockdown
Speaking one day ahead of a key eurozone finance ministers' conference on a joint economic rescue plan, Merkel called for strength.
"In my view... the European Union stands before the biggest test since its founding," she warned.
"Everyone is just as affected as the other, and therefore, it is in everyone's interest, and it is in Germany's interest for Europe to emerge strong from this test," she said.
Italy, France and Spain want to establish common debt facilities — "coronabonds" — to cushion the economic impact of the virus.
But the richer northern nations have resisted the calls — with Germany and the Netherlands in the lead — fearing their taxpayers will be left to foot the bill.
India hospital locked down
In India, the world's second most populous country, a major private hospital in economic hub Mumbai was shut down after 26 nurses and three doctors tested positive, amid complaints from staff that they had been told to work without adequate safety gear.
India has so far recorded 4,000 coronavirus cases among a population of 1.3 billion, but experts warn true the real number is likely to be far higher, with the country carrying out little testing.
And in the latest cruise ship to be caught up in the health crisis, more than 80 passengers and crew aboard an Australian liner off South America have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Uruguay's public health ministry said six passengers with "life-threatening" illness had been taken off the Greg Mortimer for treatment in Montevideo.
The rest of the more than 200 passengers and crew remain stranded on the vessel, which was on a voyage to Antarctica and South Georgia with Australian tour company Aurora Expeditions.
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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