Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
30-04-2020
By SJA Jafri + Agencies
GENEVA/ NEW YORK/ PARIS: Around a third of the world’s known coronavirus patients, some 1,004,483 people, have recovered from the disease while, the number of confirmed worldwide infections stood at more than 3.2 million, with some 228,000 deaths and more than 1 million recoveries.
More than 3.8 million people in the US filed new claims for jobless benefits over the past week, bringing the six-week total since the beginning of coronavirus-related lockdowns to more than 30m.
The Eurozone’s economy shrunk by 3.8 percent in the first quarter, the biggest hit since records began in 1995.
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, defended the body’s record in its response to the new coronavirus, saying it has acted “quickly and decisively” since the beginning.
Deaths from the coronavirus in Italy climbed by 285, against 323 on Wednesday, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new infections stood at 1,872, down from 2,086 the day before.
The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on February 21 now stands at 27,967, the agency said, the second highest in the world after that of the United States.
The number of officially confirmed cases, which includes those who have died or recovered, was 205,463, the third highest global tally behind those of the United States and Spain.
People registered as currently carrying the illness declined to 101,551 from 104,657 on Wednesday.
The death toll in the United Kingdom rose by 674 to 26,711, Prime Minister Boris Jhonson said in his first appearance after recovering from the coronavirus.
People working or studying close to the Polish border will be able to cross it regularly again as of May 4 without needing to undergo a two-week quarantine, Poland’s prime minister said.
“The growth of new coronavirus cases is relatively low and stable. We haven’t won with the epidemic, but we increasingly have it under more control,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a post on his Facebook page.
“It means we can take more decided steps to allow economic life to speed up,” he wrote.
The loosening of restrictions he mentioned applies to those resident in areas of Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic close to the land border with Poland. But entry into Poland remains barred to all others unless they undergo the two-week quarantine.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that he would need an “army” of between 6,400 and 17,000 people to trace the contacts of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus as part of a strategy to limit outbreaks.
Cuomo said that former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg would, in coordination with Johns Hopkins University, oversee the recruitment and training of these “contact tracers” and make the program available to governments worldwide.
The WHO said about half of Europe’s countries had relaxed coronavirus-related restrictions.
Speaking to reporters in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, Hans Kluge, head of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, said 44 states in the European region had imposed partial or complete restrictions of movement in the fight against the pandemic.
Of those, 21 have begun easing their restrictions, to different extents. An additional 11 countries are planning to do so in the coming days.
However, Kluge warned: “I said before, this virus is unforgiving. We must remain vigilant, persevere and be patient.”
An armada of tankers laden with estimated 50m barrels of Saudi Arabian crude is heading towards United States shores – cargo US shale oil producers regard as a foreign invasion delivered by a lower-cost competitor hell-bent on driving them out of business.
For President Donald Trump, the timing is particularly vexing. With US voters heading to the polls in November, Trump is under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, while the US economy – a cornerstone of his re-election campaign – is being annihilated by lockdowns.
Now an oil price crash rooted in COVID-19 disruptions and aggravated by Saudi shenanigans has many US oil firms staring down the barrel of bankruptcy.
A further 391 people who tested positive for the coronavirus in English hospitals have died, taking the total there to 20,137, health officials said.
Within the 391, 15 of the patients aged between 49 and 97 had no known underlying health condition.
