France shuts down Marseille nightlife as Europe battles virus spread
PARIS, France — Bars and restaurants in France's second-biggest city Marseille were ordered closed Wednesday as Europe surged past five million coronavirus cases, with France and its neighbours hoping tighter restrictions can slow the spread.
Worldwide nearly 32 million people have been infected and more than 971,000 have died since the virus emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 and spread across the globe.
After appearing to bring cases mostly under control with economically devastating lockdowns, Europe now faces a resurgence, forcing governments to consider reintroducing tough measures.
More than half of Europe's infections have been recorded in Russia, followed by Spain, France and the United Kingdom.
The 380,000 cases reported in the past week represent the highest number in the region since the start of the pandemic.
'Be vigilant'
As infection data worsen in France — with more than 13,000 new cases reported and almost 800 hospital admissions on Thursday alone — French Health Minister Olivier Veran said bars and restaurants must close in Mediterranean port city Marseille, now the only part of mainland France at "maximum alert".
One level down on a new sliding scale of infection control measures, at "elevated alert", eight major cities including Paris will see new restrictions, including limitations on public gatherings to 10 people and earlier closing hours for bars.
The data is "continuing to worsen" but there is "still time to act", Veran said.
The Madrid region, the heart of an explosion of infections in Spain, has already locked down roughly 850,000 people and plans to extend the measures on Friday.
Britain has also announced fresh steps to try to allay the rising toll.
"To help contain the virus, office workers who can work effectively from home should do so," the government said on Tuesday, despite fears of a devastating economic impact.
British new cases mounted to more than 6,000 in 24 hours on Wednesday, with almost 42,000 dead since the pandemic began.
New rules come into force for pubs and other hospitality venues on Thursday, forcing them to close early, and plans to allow fans back into sporting events have been ditched.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the new restrictions could last up to six months and called for a collective effort to "get through this winter together".
His scientific advisors had said the United Kingdom could see a devastating 50,000 coronavirus cases a day by mid-October if no action is taken.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday that the virus is "not just a public health emergency, it is a communications emergency too", urging the media and social media platforms to do more to battle harmful misinformation.
Trump says deaths 'a shame'
The World Health Organization reported late on Monday that almost two million infections were recorded around the globe in the week to September 20.
The United States has passed 200,000 deaths, the world's highest toll, with Brazil, India and Mexico the next most severely affected countries.
The world's most powerful nation hit the figure just 41 days before a presidential election.
US President Donald Trump — who faces a tough re-election fight and is trailing Democrat Joe Biden in the polls — said the 200,000 milestone was "a shame" and deflected blame on to China.
Trump used a Tuesday video address to the annual United Nations General Assembly to attack Beijing for not stopping the spread of what he called the "China virus".
"We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world — China," he told the UN's diplomatic showcase event, which is being held almost entirely online because of the pandemic.
Trump has repeatedly played down the seriousness of the coronavirus crisis.
The pandemic is taking a heavier toll on employment than previously feared, the United Nations said on Wednesday, with hundreds of millions of jobs lost and workers suffering a "massive" drop in earnings.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) found that by mid-year, global working hours had declined 17.3 percent compared with last December -- equivalent to nearly 500 million full-time jobs.
"The impact has been catastrophic," ILO chief Guy Ryder told reporters in a virtual briefing.
German finance minister Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that the pandemic response would see Berlin breach its self-imposed no-new-debts rule for the second year running in 2021, as it forks out vast sums to keep Europe's top economy afloat.
"We are acting decisively, even if it costs a lot of money — doing nothing would be much more expensive for our country," Scholz said.
But with German output expected to fall less steeply than many neighbours this year, Berlin hopes to return to balanced budgets from 2022.
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
- Latest
- Trending
