Global efforts ratcheted up, flights grounded

Rome, March 23

Global emergency efforts to slow the coronavirus pandemic ratcheted up Monday with more nations and cities imposing extraordinary lockdowns, as the death toll soared towards 15,000.

From Germany banning gatherings of more than two people, New Zealand announcing a four-week lockdown and Hong Kong shutting its borders to all non-residents, the new round of containment efforts highlighted a deepening sense of panic around the world.

In the United States, President Donald Trump ordered thousands of emergency hospital beds to be set up at coronavirus hotspots as a trillion-dollar economic rescue package crashed in the Senate.

“We’re at war, in a true sense we’re at war,” Trump said. The death toll from the virus surged to more than 14,400, with Europe the epicentre.

Meanwhile, widening curbs on travel to contain the spread of the coronavirus led airlines to ramp up flight cancellations on Monday, with new restrictions spanning Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

Globally, the number of scheduled flights last week was down more than 12 per cent from the year earlier, flight data provider OAG said, with many airlines having announced further cuts to come.

“It is a war against a virus,” Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, said.

Italy’s world-worst toll from the pandemic approached 5,500 with another 651 deaths reported on Sunday, a day after it surpassed China with the highest number of fatalities.

European Nations continued to choke people movement, with Greece on Monday morning to follow Italy, Spain and France in imposing a nationwide lockdown.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday announced the ban on gatherings of more than two people. She did so while in quarantine herself because she had met an infected doctor.

“That was heartbreaking. We have made a huge investment preparing for a successful tourism season,” hotel owner Tamriko Sikharulidze said in Tbilisi after Georgia declared a state of emergency over the weekend.

Police patrolled the deserted streets of Rome on the weekend, while checks were carried out on Italian beaches after local officials complained people were defying isolation orders by catching sometime in the sun.

Spain’s Prime Minister said he would ask Parliament to extend a 15-day state of emergency, which bars people from leaving home unless absolutely essential, until April 11.

Spain recorded close to 400 new fatalities on Sunday, bringing the total to 1,720, suggesting the lockdown was failing to be effective. Opera star Placido Domingo said he had tested positive.

Residents across France, where the death toll jumped to 674, remained shut in their homes.

Britain inched towards similar measures as Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the country was a couple of weeks behind registering similar numbers to Italy. In the United States, more than a third of Americans were under various forms of lockdown, including in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, but the number of infections in the country has continued to climb. AFP

spain reports 462 deaths in 24 hrs

Madrid: The coronavirus death toll in Spain surged to 2,182 after 462 people died within 24 hours, the health ministry said on Monday. The death rate showed a 27% increase on the figures released a day earlier, with the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 rising to 33,089 in Spain, one of the worst-hit countries in the world after China and Italy. Despite an unprecedented national lockdown which was put in place on March 14, the number of deaths and infections have spiralled in Spain, with the figures growing as the country steps up its capacity for testing.

Italy bans travel to curb infections

Rome: Italy banned travel and shut down a range of industries on Monday in a last-ditch push to stem the spread of a coronavirus that has killed nearly 5,500 people in a month. The latest wave of restrictions is designed to get the Mediterranean country through a vital 10-day stretch in which the rate of deaths and infections is supposed to finally drop. Italy’s health officials sounded notes of guarded hope after reporting another 651 fatalities on Sunday. The figure was the second-highest recorded during the crisis and above that officially registered anywhere else in the world in a day.

Global Toll 15,189

UN to create global coronavirus fund

Oslo: The United Nations (UN) will create a fund to prevent the spread of coronavirus and support the treatment of patients worldwide, Norway said on Monday. The purpose of the fund is to assist developing countries with weak health systems in addressing the crisis as well as to tackle the long-term consequences. The UN could make a formal announcement this week, the ministry said. Norway, which suggested the fund, has not committed how much money it would put into the initiative, similar to a 2014 UN Ebola Response Fund. “We want to make sure that the efforts are as unified as possible and as early as possible so that we can answer up to the demands that countries will have, especially the poorest countries,” Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said. Reuters