COVID-19 Pandemic World Updates

[deaddirty]

The death toll in Italy from the coronavirus pandemic rose by 743 intoday up to 6,820, reversing a declining trend in fatalities observed over the last two days.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has gone above 400,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University global dashboard.

The university is recording 18,227 dead.

And the rate in Italy fell back a bit today - it does look as if it is at least levelling out, overall.

New hope for Italy as daily rate of infections and number of deaths both fall, with 7.5 per cent rise and 683 fatalities compared to 8.2 per cent and 743 dead yesterday

 

[deaddirty]

There are two fatalities for now, media say. I havent heard about any treatment but many people believe that doctors often give another diagnosis for infected telling that it is flu or cold. I dont know whether it is true or not.

Meatpie, Demon .
Here is some information on the situation in Russia. The Guardian is a very reliable source - they fact-check carefully, and correct any errors that do slip through. And since this is partly from the Kremlin website, it is presumably at least semi-official.

Russian official questions Putin over coronavirus

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, warns president situation more serious than thought

www.theguardian.com

 

[deaddirty]

Trump can kill!

Arizona man dies after attempting to take Trump coronavirus 'cure'

Wife survives after couple in their 60s ingested chloroquine phosphate, which Trump falsely claimed was approved to treat coronavirus

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Thank you for the updates DD.

Here is a quick summary of the latest:

• The US now has almost 70,000 confirmed cases and at least 1,050 deaths
• But New York state, the worst-affected, says social restrictions are slowing hospital admissions
• US Senate passes $2 trillion stimulus bill, which includes $1,200 for most adults
• In the UK, financial support for the self-employed is due to be unveiled
• The number of deaths in the UK has risen to 465, out of 9,500 confirmed cases
• In China, no new cases were reported in Hubei province, where the virus emerged

 

[Meatpie]

People in face masks waiting in line by the entrance to a lab that has launched paid testing for coronavirus in Moscow.

 

[Meatpie]

COVID-19 Restrictions in Europe.

 

[Meatpie]

Revolutionary Guard members take part in disinfecting the city

The situation in Iran continues to worsen.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, announced plans for a $35 fine for any Iranian breaching new social distancing laws, adding anyone found driving a car outside their town of residence will have their car confiscated for a month.

The move came as the health ministry confirmed another 157 deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours, taking Iran’s total to 2,234 fatalities. A record 2,389 new cases had been recorded over the same period. Five days ago the numbers being infected daily was below 900.

The central bank governor, Abdolnaser Hemmat, also announced that he is planning to withdraw $1bn from the national development fund to help ease the burden of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy and health sector.

Businesses that do not sack their staff are to be given low interest loans from a pool of over $4.7bn over the next two years. The move suggests that Iran knows the US is blocking a request to the IMF for $5bn loan. Official statistics are showing a sudden increase in both deaths and numbers infected.

The lockdown, long demanded by provinces that fear infection from Tehran and Qom, will ban any driver from a town in which are not registered as resident. Licence plate and national insurance number acting as proof of the driver’s residency. Only some certified traffic carrying fuel, food and health supplies will be allowed to use roads for deliveries

Other moves include closing most parks, swimming pools and public spaces. All gatherings, formal or informal, are banned including weddings.

Punishments including 500,000 toman fine (about £30) and 1 month confiscation of vehicles if anyone is found trying to enter a city in which they are not domiciled. The new laws led to major traffic queues outside Iran’s major cities.

Those who are on trips should immediately return home, the new orders state. Shops who remain open without permission will be sealed for up to 1 months.

Small and big grocery and supermarkets can be kept open, and roughly a third of the government payroll will be kept in work. Schools and universities will remain closed indefinitely.

The Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani said if the Iranian public finally co-operated with the new plans the disease can be brought under control within a fortnight. The new laws will be a test for the authority of the Iranian government, and its ability to maintain order.

Repeated pleas by officials for Iranians not to use the new year holidays as an opportunity to travel were ignored, and the numbers catalogued as infected has risen sharply in the past four days.

 

[Meatpie]

US deaths from the coronavirus pandemic have topped 1,000, in another grim milestone for a global outbreak that is taking lives and wreaking havoc on economies and established routines of ordinary life.

Worldwide, the death toll climbed past 21,000, according to a running count kept by Johns Hopkins University, and the US had 1,046 deaths and nearly 70,000 infections.

Spain’s death toll has risen past 3,400, eclipsing that of China, where the virus was first detected in December, and is now second only to that of Italy, which has 7,500. Lidia Perera, a nurse at Madrid’s 1,000-bed Hospital de la Paz, said more workers were desperately needed. We are collapsing,” Perera said.

The Spanish parliament voted to allow the government extend strict stay-at-home rules and business closings until 11 April.
Such measures are becoming increasingly common in the U.S., where New York is the center of the domestic outbreak, accounting for more than 30,000 cases and close to 300 deaths, most of them in New York City.

Public health officials in the city hunted down beds and medical equipment and called for more doctors and nurses for fear the number of sick patients will overwhelm hospitals as has happened in Italy and Spain.

A makeshift morgue was set up outside Bellevue Hospital, and the city’s police, their ranks dwindling as more fall ill, were told to patrol nearly empty streets to enforce social distancing

 

[Meatpie]

Ill man makes plea for public to take coronavirus seriously

A 51-year-old man suspected of having coronavirus has made an emotional plea for the public to take Covid-19 seriously. Gasping for breath and struggling to speak, Andy Hardwick says he has been floored by it. 'I wouldn't wish it on my enemy,' he says. 'My spine hurts, my back hurts. You don't want to talk, you get shortness of breath if you move around.

 

[Meatpie]

Horrible headlines on CNN today mostly from Spain and USA.

 

[Meatpie]

3.3 Million Unemployment Claims were Filed in the US — the Highest Number of Initial Jobless Claims in Human History.

Read more from CNN.

 

[Meatpie]

Doctor treats a coronavirus patient at a hospital in Rome, Italy, on March 21.

Quick update on the situation in Italy:

The number of doctors in Italy who have died of coronavirus has risen to 37, the Italian Federation of Medical Professionals said Thursday.

Italy, the new epicenter of the virus, has recorded more than 70,000 cases and more than 7,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

 

[deaddirty]

Thanks for the updates Meatpie, though mostly they make grim reading.

Here is something a bit more encouraging. Hopefully an antibody test will be approved within days (assuming it proves sufficiently reliable), though it will take some time to roll out on a large scale, and longer to accumulate the data to answer such crucial questions as how much of the population in any country already have antibodies and so at least some immunity, how complete that immunity is, and how long that immunity lasts (probably at least a year or two, but the indications beyond that seem to be contradictory).

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/can-you-become-immune-to-the-coronavirus/ar-BB11Jqr8?ocid=msedgdhp

 

[Meatpie]

Good evening DD. Thanks for the link. For the first time in three weeks I ventured outside today and I felt like an alien.

 

[Meatpie]

New York’s coronavirus death toll jumps 100 in just one day to 385

The coronavirus has now killed 385 New Yorkers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday — with a startling leap of 100 fatalities in the span of just 24 hours.

That staggering toll represents a triple-digit hike from the 285 cases Cuomo reported on Wednesday, among 37,258 confirmed cases now tallied statewide.

“This is the really bad news,” said Cuomo in his now-daily Albany press briefing. “That’s the worst news you can have.”

The grim death tally includes 281 in the Big Apple, according to city statistics current as of Thursday morning.

With the worst of the contagion still expected to be at least two to three weeks out, Cuomo said that the state is working to establish at least one 1,000-bed overflow hospital in each of the five boroughs, plus Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland counties.

It’s projected that the state will need at least 140,000 hospital beds at the disease’s peak, easily more than double New York’s 53,000 permanent beds.

“I don’t want to sugarcoat the situation,” said Cuomo. “But easy times don’t forge character, it’s the tough times that forge character.

“And that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

 

[Meatpie]

 

[Meatpie]

Reports are spreading online mostly on social media that thousands of people are in hospital in Crimea with pneumonia but authorites are not offically admitting it is COVID-19 disease.

 

[Meatpie]

 

[Meatpie]

 

[Meatpie]

More bad news from the UK I am afraid.