The COVID-19 pandemic has notched up another round of record death tolls in the US and Europe, dousing the optimism of US President Donald Trump, who insisted that there was “light at the end of the tunnel.”
As of yesterday, the novel coronavirus had killed more than 87,000 people and infected more than 1.5 million, according to an Agence France-Presse tally, sparing almost no nation and tipping the world into a devastating economic crisis as global commerce shudders to a halt.
For the second straight day, the US on Wednesday grieved nearly 2,000 deaths, as flags flew at half-mast in hardest-hit New York.
Photo: AFP
There was also a record death toll of 938 over 24 hours in Britain.
France saw its total number of dead climb to more than 10,000 as the country prepared to extend its strict lockdown measures.
Spain and Italy were still seeing hundreds of deaths per day, despite tentative signs that the disease might have peaked.
The pandemic was marching into areas previously only lightly affected: In Africa, Ethiopia declared a state of emergency and Liberia said that it was locking down its capital, Monrovia.
Its deadly tentacles also crept deep into the Amazon rainforest, with the first case detected among the Yanomami, an indigenous community isolated from the world until the mid-20th century that is vulnerable to disease.
Nevertheless, some glimmers of hope shone in the darkness, with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying that the epidemic curve seemed to be flattening.
“We are hopefully heading towards a final stretch, the light at the end of the tunnel,” Trump said.
Worldwide, medical facilities were at the bursting point as they struggle with a relentless procession of critically ill patients.
In hard-hit Guayaquil, Ecuador, sick patients were passing out before arriving at emergency rooms and older people were slumped outside in wheelchairs at overwhelmed hospitals.
At the global level, the WHO and Trump were embroiled in an ugly war of words, with Trump accusing the UN body of “blowing it” and being too close to China.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged unity at a time of global crisis, saying: “If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it.”
“It’s like playing with fire,” he added.
Governments have been wrestling with the problem of when to exit lockdown procedures and reboot a global economy that is effectively in a deep freeze.
The WTO said that the pandemic was likely to spark the deepest recession “of our lifetimes,” with global trade poised to plummet by one-third.
The Bank of France estimated that the country’s economy shrank about 6 percent in the first quarter — the worst performance since the end of World War II.
European powerhouse Germany was expected to contract an eye-watering 10 percent as the eurozone squabbled about pooling debt for “coronabonds” to help its worst-affected members, such as Spain and Italy.
In Miami, hundreds lined up in their vehicles to get unemployment forms after a Web site crashed due to a surge in demand.
US data indicated that 10 million people have lost their jobs in the world’s top economy, which is closed for business.
Late yesterday, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal ruled that a blanket government ban on masks was unconstitutional.
Partially overturning a lower court’s ruling, a three-judge panel said that while the government had the right to ban the wearing of masks at unlawful assemblies, a ban on masks at legal public gatherings was unconstitutional.
In October last year, during the height of pro-democracy protests, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years that allowed her to enact a new regulation banning masks.
At the time, many protesters wore masks to hide their identities from the authorities and also from their employers, particularly if the firms had close connections to Beijing. Protesters also wore masks to protect themselves from tear gas.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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