Updated 9.30am
Reuters
Global coronavirus cases surpassed one million on Thursday with more than 51,000 deaths as the pandemic further exploded in the United States and the death toll climbed in Spain and Italy, according to a tally by a US university.
Italy had the most deaths, more than 13,900, followed by Spain. The United States had the most confirmed cases of any country, more than 235,000, said researchers at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Medical staff in full protective gear carry a patient on a stretcher down a street in Naples, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, Italy, on 2nd April. PICTURE: Reuters/Ciro De Luca
Since the virus was first recorded in China late last year, the pandemic has spread around the world, prompting governments to close businesses, ground airlines and order hundreds of millions of people to stay at home to try to slow the contagion.
Johns Hopkins in Baltimore said more than 200,000 people had recovered from the disease, more than 75,000 of them in China.
Amid unprecedented government steps to prop up economies battered by the outbreak, US weekly jobless claims jumped to a record 6.6 million, double the record from the previous week. That reinforced economists’ views that the longest employment boom in US history probably ended in March, and that claims were expected to rise further.
New York City morgues and hospitals bent under the strain on Thursday, struggling to treat or bury casualties, as New York state’s Governor Andrew Cuomo offered a grim prediction the rest of the country would soon face the same misery.
In hard-hit Spain, the death toll rose to more than 10,000 on Thursday after a record 950 people died overnight, but health officials were encouraged by a slowdown in daily increases in infections and deaths.
Spain has shed jobs at a record pace since it went into lockdown to fight the coronavirus, social security data showed on Thursday, with some 900,000 workers having lost their jobs since mid-March.
Appearing for the first time since recovering from the virus himself, Britain’s health minister Matt Hancock promised a tenfold increase in the number of daily tests for the coronavirus by the end of the month after the government faced criticism for failing to roll out mass checks for health workers and the public.
Britain initially took a restrained approach to the outbreak but Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who tested positive for the virus himself, changed tack and imposed stringent social distancing measures after modeling showed a quarter of a million people in the country could die.
In Italy, which hit a daily peak of 6,557 new cases on 21st March and accounts for around 28 per cent of all global fatalities, the death toll climbed to 13,915 on Thursday. But it was the fourth consecutive day in which the number of new cases stayed within a range of 4,050-4,782, seeming to confirm government hopes that the epidemic had hit a plateau.
Italy was the first Western country to introduce sweeping bans on movement and economic activity, having first confirmed the presence of coronavirus almost six weeks ago.
The first 100,000 cases worldwide of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, were reported in around 55 days and the first 500,000 in 76 days, according to a Reuters tally based on official records.
CORONAVIRUS LATEST
EUROPE
• Italy’s daily death toll on Wednesday was the lowest in six days, but the overall number of new infections grew and the government extended its national lockdown.
• Britain’s Prime Minister promised to ramp up testing, as a poll said more than a half of Britons think the government was too slow to order a lockdown.
• 570 people have died in nursing homes in France’s eastern region, suggesting the national death toll could be far higher than thought.
• Switzerland’s government said it was still far too early to relax measures.
• Spain’s death toll exceeded 10,000 on Thursday after a record 950 people died overnight, but health officials noted a slowdown in proportional daily increases in infections and deaths.
• The separatist government of Spain’s Catalonia region asked the national military for assistance.
• Portugal extended its state of emergency by another 15 days.
• Greece has quarantined a migrant camp after 20 asylum seekers tested positive, its first such facility hit since the outbreak.
• Russia’s medical equipment delivery to the United States drew anger from critics at home who pointed out severe shortages at home.
AMERICAS
• A record 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, and another four states told residents to stay at home – orders which now affect more than 80% of Americans in 39 states.
• The presidents of United States and Brazil discussed cooperation as Brazil’s health minister warned that infection rates and lack of medical supplies were a big concern.
• Brazil confirmed its first Indigenous coronavirus case deep in the Amazon rainforest.
• Colombian health workers took to the streets of Bogota to show support for colleagues and protest what they say are salary delays amid the pandemic.
• Mexico’s president urged companies to keep paying workers or face public scorn, even as criticism of his economic management grows.
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
• Mainland China logged fewer new infections on Thursday, but measures restricting movement were tightened in some areas due to a fear of more imported cases.
• India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said as officials battle to contain the country’s biggest cluster of infections in New Delhi.
• Facing calls to declare a state of emergency, Japan’s Prime Minister was derided on social media for instead offering people cloth masks, pointing to growing frustration with his handling of the crisis.
• Indonesia’s coronavirus death toll rose to 170 on Thursday, passing South Korea as the country with the highest number of recorded fatalities in Asia after China.
• WHO expects the number of cases in Malaysia to peak in mid-April, saying there are signs of a flattening of the infection curve.
• Singapore suffered its fourth death on Thursday, a day after it reported a record number of new cases that took its total to 1,000.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
• The United Nations and Western allies are pointing to coronavirus to push Yemen’s combatants to agree to fresh talks to end a war that has left millions vulnerable to disease.
• Hackers linked to the Iranian government have attempted to break into the personal email accounts of staff at the World Health Organization, sources told Reuters.
• Turkey’s tourism minister said he expected flights to return to normal by the end of June, as the country planned to step up measures if the virus keeps spreading and people ignore “voluntary” quarantine rules.
• A United Nations agency has negotiated a humanitarian corridor to keep food aid flowing in southern Africa after most countries shut borders.
• Zambia recorded its first death.
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
• World equity markets hovered between small gains and losses Thursday, as the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continued to rise and economic pain deepened with another record week of jobless claims in the United States.
• World food prices fell sharply in March, hit by a drop in demand and a plunge in global oil prices, the United Nations food agency said.
• Global financial regulators said they are in talks with governments to allow key staff at financial firms to work on site to keep markets open.
• The economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to undermine NATO defence targets as governments move closer to spending goals only by virtue of shrinking economies.
• The European Commission proposed measures to protect the EU economy, including a short-time work scheme and easier access to funds for farmers and fishermen. It also apologised to Italy for a lack of solidarity but promised greater help with the economic fallout.
• The European Central Bank has delayed its overarching strategy review by six months until mid-2021.
• Luxembourg, the EU’s largest investment hub, has tightened disclosure rules in the face of market volatility and asked funds to disclose whenever client demand to exit exceeds 10 per cent of total assets.
• Spain has shed 900,000 jobs since it went into lockdown, a drop documented over less than three weeks.
– Compiled by SARAH MORLAND, MILLA NISSI, ADITYA SONI and UTTARESH V.
