At a time when about half of the world population is facing some form of confinement, the World Health Organization draws attention to the fact that there are more and more cases of people between 30 and 50 years old in intensive care and dying from the covid -19. There are also more authorities calling for the use of masks outside the home.
Germany
On the day Chancellor Angela Merkel returned to her office after a quarantine period due to contact with a doctor infected with covid-19, the government announced that anyone who does not comply with the social distance of 1.5 meters will incur a fine. It is up to each of the state governments to define the amount of the fine. In Berlin the hand is heavier (up to 500 euros) than, for example, in Bavaria. In the state with the most cases, non-compliant citizens may have to pay 150 euros.
Measures taken by German authorities to slow the spread of the coronavirus are beginning to take effect, said Robert Koch Institute President Lothar Wieler. “We are seeing that the spread of the virus is slowing down … it is working.” However, he highlighted the need to maintain social restrictions. Wieler said that each person who had been infected with the virus was now infecting just another, on average, when that number had previously reached seven. On a less optimistic note, Wieler acknowledged that the number of infected (about 90,000) and dead (over 1200) is higher than indicated by health authorities. “I assume that we will have more deaths than officially recorded.”
Australia
With 10% of the total infected from cruise ships, Scott Morrison’s government is not available for a dozen of those means of tourist transport to land and about 15,000 crew members set foot on dry land. He had already been criticized a month ago because he let 2700 passengers from the Ruby Princess when one of the containment measures in force was precisely the ban on cruise service. This weekend, a helicopter medical assistance operation is planned on eight ships to check the crew members. In light of the authorities’ warning, some ships have reversed course and others will do so after refueling. However, the captains of others warn of the human crisis on board and refuse to leave.
In Australia, which counts 5300 cases and 28 deaths, each state has adopted measures, from the strictest in force in New South Wales (Sydney) to the most uncompressed as in South Australia (Adelaide) or the Northern Territory (Darwin).
Brazil
An petition signed by defeated candidates most voted (Fernando Haddad and Ciro Gomes) to ask the president’s resignation for being a “public health problem”, expressions of displeasure throughout the country – the so-called pots – during the speeches of Jair Bolsonaro, who until Wednesday persisted in call the new coronavirus “gripezinha” and “frfriadozinho” and was against the measures taken by the governors and mayors, in line with the Ministry of Health and the WHO. On that day, his speech was more diplomatic in saying that covid-19 is “the greatest challenge of this generation”. An speech moderation following a conversation with US counterpart Donald Trump. “We exchanged information about a problem that is worldwide,” he acknowledged. The Brazilian leader maintains the priority in the economy and is in favor of easing health measures.
So far, Brazil has less infections than Portugal, despite having 21 times more population.
China
Official data pointed to 31 new cases on Friday, totaling 81620, and four more dead, which makes 3322. How reliable is this data? A week ago, Chinese media started to do accounts. A mortuary in Wuhan prepared 5,000 urns in just two days for the remains of the cremated – twice the number of deaths announced in that city for the entire period of the outbreak. Accounts made with crematoriums and queues of family members who were authorized to collect the remains of the victims, the actual death toll in Wuhan will have been more than 40,000.
As if to give reason to the critics, Beijing changed the criteria for counting infected people on Wednesday, including asymptomatic ones for the first time. According to
Team
, is the eighth different classification that the Chinese give to covid-19. This change was introduced after it was known that the CIA has been warning the White House for weeks that the data has no relation to reality. In this regard, the American senator Martha McSally resigned as Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, for “covering up China”.
Spain
Spain had 117 710 confirmed cases on Friday and 10 935 deaths from coronavirus and on Thursday and Friday the death toll reached a dismal record of over 900. It is also the second country with the highest number of new infections. after the USA. But it’s not all bad news. After almost three weeks of confinement and a particularly serious outbreak in Madrid, the country is about to achieve one of the first objectives of the health authorities: that the so-called R0 rate reaches the value 1, that is, that an infected person does not transmit the virus to more than one person. At this moment, the value is 1.05, when at the beginning of the pandemic it was eight. Authorities now advise citizens to wear a mask.
United States
After the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, having advised citizens to wear masks or scarves Trump administration ponders a similar recommendation, having foreseen for the next days news in this respect by the Center for Disease Control. However, the coordinator of the White House team for coronavirus, Deborah Birx, was not very enthusiastic, having said that hand washing and social distance are the best preventions: “The eyes are not in the mask. in things and in the eyes, it is also being exposed. “
The country that leads in number of cases (more than a quarter of a million) and whose indicators are far from the famous flattening of the curve is also news in relation to the masks, but due to diversion of loads. Or, as the interior minister of the city-state of Berlin, Andreas Geisel, said, it was an act of “modern piracy”, in reference to the order produced in China by a US company that was destined for the capital police. German. Paris also complained about a similar situation.
Italy
The country with the most registered deaths, almost 15,000, received an apology on Thursday from the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for the lack of an initial response from Brussels. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte replied in the same publication, the
La Repubblica
, to ask for “ambition, unity and courage” and the issue of European debt securities, but both von der Leyen and the leaders of Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria are against it. On the ground, more than 700 deaths per day continue to occur, leaving funeral services unanswered in Milan and Bergamo. Still, the person responsible for health in the most affected region, Lombardy, Giulio Gallera, is optimistic: “Our hospitals are starting to breathe.”
Singapore
Considered a model in the response to the outbreak of the new coronavirus, with a case tracking and record test rates per inhabitant, at the beginning of last month the city-state had just over one hundred infections. The increase to a thousand cases is explained by the return of inhabitants of the United Kingdom and the USA and has led the authorities to close the nightlife venues and to ban gatherings with more than ten people.
Sweden
The Nordic country is a case in point: primary schools remain open, as are restaurants and gymnasiums. “Each one is responsible for their own well-being, for their neighbors and for their own local community. This applies in a normal situation, and it applies in a crisis situation”, summarized the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anne Linde, who refuted the accusations of carelessness. The next few days will tell you if the strategy is to maintain. In the space of a week the number of infected people has doubled and is now more than 6 thousand and the number of dead more than tripled (over 350).
Taiwan
Formosa there is a president for the first time. His name is Tsai Ing-Wen and he has been serving his second term since January. As vice president has Chen Chien-Jen, nothing less a national hero. He is an epidemiologist who, in 2003, in the face of the SARS outbreak, was appointed Minister of Health and took strict measures to contain that coronavirus. Taiwan, or the Republic of China, not being a state recognized by the United Nations, does not belong to the World Health Organization, so it had to develop its own policies.
It is with this successful experience that the Formosinos have appeased the covid-19. There are 348 cases and five deaths to mourn. All school levels remain active normal, but with the reinforcement of measures, such as individual protections in school desks. Masks are also mandatory for public transport.
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