The “moment is critical” and we are still in October. “Too many” the countries in which there is an exponential increase in infections, especially in Europe and the United States. The northern hemisphere is “at a critical moment, the next few months will be very hard and many countries are on a dangerous path”. The warning is from the World Health Organization while the numbers arriving from the capitals mark again the irrefutable trend of a frighteningly rising curve across the continent.
Germany has passed the threshold of 10 thousand deaths from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. In all, reports the Robert Koch Institute, there are 10,003 deaths and 403,291 infections across the country. Thus in France, where the infections have broken through 42 thousand, it is the director general of the Paris Hospitals, Martin Hirsch, who sounded the alarm, stating that he believed “possible” that the “second wave” of Covid-19 “is worse than before”.
The United States has its new daily record of covid-19 infections with 80,000 new cases, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. The latest count is from the past few hours, with at least 80,005 new infections in 24 hours according to numbers provided by Johns Hopkins University, CNN reports. The previous record was 77,362 new cases registered in one day, last July 16.
“It is too early to say whether we will resort to local lockdowns,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, answering reporters’ questions after a visit to a hospital in Pontoise, north of Paris. “We will evaluate each week the effectiveness of the measures taken. At least until the beginning of December, we will have everything that has been announced by the government. These measures, of course, I can tell you today, will not be reduced. Perhaps they will be strengthened if they are not sufficiently effective. “. “We will get rid of the virus only by a stroke of luck, but we have seen that so far we have not had any luck, either for collective immunity or for a vaccine-treatment combination” – he added – But in any case “we will have this virus at least until summer “.
Between the real and official numbers there is a discrepancy in Spain, according to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who spoke of the possibility of over three million infections in the country since the beginning of the pandemic compared to the one million mark officially exceeded a few days ago. Meanwhile, in Madrid, the new restrictive measures linked to the state of regional alarm in the area among the most affected in Spain will come into force in the next few hours: officially it is not called a ‘curfew’ but the limitations are mainly in the time slot between midnight and six in the morning. Bars and restaurants will be closed during the same time slot and some clubs will not be able to admit customers after 11pm.
And Luxembourg has also decided to establish a night curfew between 11 pm and 6 am and to limit gatherings to a maximum of four people following the increase in infections. Premier Xavier Bettel announced it on Twitter.
The virus does not give respite even to the United Kingdom where there is a new peak of 20,530 daily cases and 224 deaths. The latest Rt index is estimated from 1.2 to 1.4. While total lockdown has been triggered in Wales.
It is no better on the other side of the ocean, where the United States has recorded over 75,000 cases, the second daily record since the beginning of the pandemic. Eight states hit their daily record while 13 reported more cases in the past seven days than in any previous week.
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