The spread of the pandemic continues to accelerate and to severely affect the global economy. Despite unprecedented containment measures affecting more than three billion people worldwide, the new coronavirus has now infected more than half a million people worldwide.
With more than 83,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, United States surpassed China and Italy, which account for more than 81,000 and 80,000 cases respectively, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) count. The acceleration is strongest in New York, the economic capital. The city alone has 281 deaths out of the 1,201 deaths recorded in the country. The situation was also worrying in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans where the Mardi Gras carnival on February 25, attended by several hundred thousand people, could have been the trigger of the contagion, according to experts.
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Over 23,000 deaths worldwide
The new coronavirus has already killed more than 23,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them in Europe, where nearly 275,000 cases are officially diagnosed, according to a count by AFP at 8 p.m. PST.
In France, where the death toll reaches nearly 1,700, the epidemic continues to worsen with 365 hospital deaths in 24 hours. The increase in the number of cases in Italy, the hardest hit country in the world with more than 8,000 deaths, seems to be slowing, “But it is still too early to say that the pandemic has reached its peak in this country”, tempered Thursday the head of the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), Hans Kluge.
TheSpain, the day before became the second most affected country in the world ahead of China in number of deaths, crossed the mark of 4,000 deaths on Thursday. The UK meanwhile counted a hundred dead in one day.
The Venezuela announced the first death on its territory, a 47-year-old man who previously suffered from lung disease.
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Containment measures and cease-fires
If the epidemic seems to be contained in China, the country has decided to close its borders to most foreigners from Saturday, business trips aside.
Population South African (927 cases identified), she began a three-week confinement period Friday at midnight with deployment on army street. The ten million inhabitants of the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa, will also be placed in “Total containment” But “Intermittent” for three weeks.
The Turkey for its part, placed in confinement some 1,500 people, the majority of them Algerians, who had been stranded for several days in Istanbul’s main airport after flight cancellations.
The UN has welcomed the announcement of a ceasefire by several armed groups (in the Philippines, at Cameroon and at Yemen in particular) to facilitate the fight against the pandemic.
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Financial measures taken and to come
As a result of unprecedented containment measures: the world is at a standstill and the economy is sinking. Meeting on Thursday at the summit by videoconference under the presidency of King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the leaders of G20 pledged to inject $ 5,000 billion to support the global economy threatened by the pandemic.
The members ofEuropean Union (EU) have agreed to examine within two weeks stronger measures to deal with the announced recession. These new proposals were imposed by Italy and Spain, who demanded an economic response “Strong and adequate” from the Twenty-Seven. But the idea of pooling the debts of eurozone countries, which would facilitate borrowing from the southern states, did not appeal to Germany and the Netherlands. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken out loud and clear after the summit against her so-called “Corona bonds”.
A team of researchers australians undertook to test on a large scale a vaccine used for decades against tuberculosis. The BCG test will involve a total of some 4,000 caregivers in Australian hospitals to test its ability to reduce symptoms of Covid-19, researchers at the Murdoch Institute in Melbourne said.
Similar tests will also be carried out in other countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Our selection of articles on the coronavirus
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