ROME: The death toll from the coronavirus epidemic in Europe surged past 20,000 on Saturday, even as the Chinese city where the outbreak began cautiously returned to life.
Europe and the United States are facing a staggering increase in new cases of COVID-19 — despite perhaps a third of humanity now living under lockdown. The grim new death numbers were reported after the IMF confirmed the world economy has plunged into a historic slump and the US invoked wartime procurement powers.
On Monday, Russia will become the latest country to “restrict traffic” across its borders in an attempt to slow the pandemic’s spread, according to a decree on the government website.
More than 600,000 cases of the novel coronavirus have been officially recorded around the world since the outbreak began, according to an AFP tally.
Variations in testing regimes mean the true number is likely far higher, and confirmed deaths are mounting.
Europe is now the worst-hit continent with 20,059 deaths from 337,632 reported cases. The COVID-19 disease has killed 9,134 in Italy and 5,690 in Spain.
France has seen close to 2,000 fatalities while the British toll passed 1,000 on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Iran announced 139 more deaths and India sealed off a dozen Punjab villages that had been visited by a guru now known to be infected and a possible “super-spreader”.
And, in South Africa, Johannesburg police resorted to rubber bullets to enforce social distancing on a crowd queueing for supplies outside a downtown supermarket during a national lockdown.
The United States now has the world’s highest number of COVID-19 cases but per capita European nations are still the worst hit, with emergency services across the world struggling to cope.
However, two months of almost total isolation appear to have paid off in China’s Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, which partially reopened.
Since January, residents have been forbidden to leave, with roadblocks installed and millions subjected to dramatic restrictions on their daily life.
But on Saturday people were allowed to enter the city, and most of the subway network restarted. Some shopping centres will open their doors next week.
With 60 percent of the country in lockdown, and infections skyrocketing, Trump also signed the largest stimulus package in US history, worth $2 trillion.
Italy recorded almost 1,000 deaths from the virus on Friday — the worst one-day toll anywhere since the pandemic began.
One coronavirus sufferer, a cardiologist from Rome who has since recovered, recalled his hellish experience at a hospital in the capital.
“The treatment for the oxygen therapy is painful, looking for the radial artery is difficult. Desperate other patients were crying out, ‘enough, enough’,” he told AFP.
Infection rates in Italy are on a downward trend, but the head of the national health institute Silvio Brusaferro said it was not out of the woods yet, predicting “we could peak in the next few days”.
Spain has the world’s second-highest coronavirus death toll and its number of cases jumped to 72,248 on Saturday as the country moves to significantly increase testing..—AFP
