Spain's coronavirus deaths surpass 20,000 but daily increase slows: health ministry

Confirmed coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have risen by 1,140 to 31,589, Dutch health authorities said on Saturday.

The death toll among people known to have been infected with the novel coronavirus increased by 142 to 3,601, the Dutch Institute for Public Health (RIVM) said in its daily update reports Reuters

The Swiss death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 1,111 people, the country’s public health agency said on Saturday, rising from 1,059 a day earlier.

The number of people showing positive tests for the disease increased to 27,404, the agency said, up from 27,078 reports Reuters

Iran’s death toll from the new coronavirus rose by 73 in the previous 24 hours to reach 5,031 on Saturday, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said on state TV.

The official number of deaths recorded daily dropped under 100 on April 14 and Saturday marks the fifth day in a row that the increase has been below that level.

The total number of people diagnosed with the COVID-19 disease caused by the new virus reached 80,868, as the country recorded 1,374 new cases in the past 24 hours, the spokesman said, reports Reuters.

Spain’s death toll from coronavirus rose by 565 on Saturday, down from a rise of 585 on Friday, the Health Ministry said, bringing the total to 20,043 deaths in one of the world’s hardest hit countries.

The number of overall coronavirus cases rose to 191,726 on Saturday from 188,068 on Friday, it added reports Reuters.

The number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in Japan rose to 10,000 on Saturday, NHK public broadcaster said, just days after a state of emergency was extended to the entire nation in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday appealed to the nation to stay indoors as new cases hit a record in the capital of Tokyo and fears medical services could fail in rural areas that are home to many elderly prompted the expansion of the state of emergency from an original seven areas, Reuters reported. 

Photo: Reuters

Just over 200 people have died from the virus in Japan, but Tokyo remains the hardest-hit area, reporting 201 new infections on Friday alone - a new record.

Tokyo reported 181 new cases on Saturday, NHK reported.

Pedestrians wearing protective face masks cross a street outside a shopping mall amid new cases of coronavirus, in Manila, Philippines, March 11, 2020/ Reuters

The Philippines' health ministry on Saturday reported 10 new coronavirus deaths and 209 additional infections.

In a bulletin, the health ministry said total infections have risen to 6,087, while deaths have reached 397, Reuters reported. 

It added that 29 more patients have recovered, bringing the total to 516.

Taiwan will put 700 navy sailors into quarantine after three cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed among sailors who had been on a goodwill mission to the Pacific island state of Palau, the government said today.

Three Taiwan navy vessels visited Palau - one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan - in the middle of March, before returning to Taiwan a month later, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters, Reuters reported.

The three confirmed cases had all shared quarters on the same ship, but all 700 sailors on all three ships were being re-called and would be put into quarantine, he said.

Taiwan's presidential office said that President Tsai Ing-wen had been at the ceremony to welcome back the ships but had only waved to the sailors from the shore and had not been exposed to the risk of infection.

These are the first coronavirus cases reported in Taiwan's military. The navy was carrying out a deep clean of the three ships to disinfect them.

Taiwan has only reported 398 coronavirus cases and six deaths, a far lower number than many of its neighbours due to strict measures taken in the early stages of the outbreak to contain its spread.

The president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that his country of 20,000 people had not had a single case of the coronavirus and he was going to shut it off from the outside world to keep the virus out.

Commuters leave the Woodlands Causeway across to Singapore from Johor, hours before Malaysia imposes a lockdown on travel due to the coronavirus outbreak, in Singapore March 17, 2020/ Reuters

Singapore's health ministry confirmed 942 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, a new daily record, taking the total number of Covid-19 cases in the city-state to 5,992.

The vast majority of the new cases are of "work permit" holders living in foreign worker dormitories, the health ministry said in a statement today, Reuters reported.

Russia said Friday it had recorded 32,008 coronavirus cases, including a record 4,070 in the last 24 hours, with officials warning that Moscow was two to three weeks away from a peak in infections.

Official figures showed more than half of the new cases were registered in Moscow and the surrounding region. So far 273 deaths have been recorded in Russia, including 41 in the last 24 hours, AFP reported.

Moscow, Europe’s largest city with some 12 million inhabitants, has been under lockdown since the end of March but officials have complained that many residents are flouting confinement rules.

Deputy mayor Anastasia Rakova warned the city “will face difficult weeks” ahead.

“The peak in morbidity should arrive in the next two to three weeks,” she said in a video released on social media.

Under confinement rules that Muscovites have to observe until at least May 1, they are only allowed to leave their homes to go to work, walk their dogs, take out trash or visit their nearest shop.

This week city authorities tightened the lockdown by introducing a digital permit system, requiring that anyone travelling by car or public transport obtain a pass.

Russia has carried out more than 1.7 million coronavirus tests, though there have been concerns about their reliability.

Netflix Inc has increased the amount of money in its coronavirus emergency relief fund by $50 million, bringing the total for displaced production workers to $150 million, a company spokeswoman said on Friday.

Film and TV production has been shut down around the world as people shelter at home to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. The abrupt closures put hundreds of thousands of cast and crew members out of work, Reuters reported. 

In March, Netflix announced it had established a $100 million fund to assist the hardest-hit workers on its own productions and others in areas where Netflix has a large production base. ·Some of the money is being allocated through nonprofit groups that are helping the industry through the coronavirus crisis.

The company so far has provided assistance in the United States, Canada, Britain, Italy, India, France, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and the Netherlands.

Hospitals in Japan are increasingly turning away sick people as the country struggles with surging coronavirus infections and its emergency medical system collapses.

In one recent case, an ambulance carrying a man with a fever and difficulty breathing was rejected by 80 hospitals and forced to search for hours for a hospital in downtown Tokyo that would treat him. Another feverish man finally reached a hospital after paramedics unsuccessfully contacted 40 clinics, AP reported.

Read More

China's National Health Commission reported 27 new confirmed coronavirus cases on April 17, up from 26 the day earlier, according to data published on Saturday.

Of that figure, 17 cases were imported via individuals arriving overseas, up from 15 the previous day, Reuters reported. 

Newly discovered asymptomatic cases were at 54, down from 66 a day earlier. Three of the new cases were imported, according to the health ministry.

People wait for the train at the Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan as travel restrictions for leaving the city, the epicentre of a global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, are lifted and people will be allowed to leave the city via road, rail and air, in Wuhan, Hubei, China April 8, 2020/ Reuters

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country reached 82,719, an increase of 300 from the number reported the day prior. The sharp uptake follows revisions in case reporting that the NHC announced on Friday.

The ministry placed the total death toll from the virus at 4,632 as of April 17, a number it originally reported on Friday when it publicly announced the revised figures. The new death toll marks an increase of over 1,000.

The United States on Friday passed 700,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

With the highest number of cases and deaths of any country in the world, the US had recorded 700,282 cases of COVID-19 and 36,773 deaths as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday), according to the Baltimore-based university.

That marked an increase of 3,856 deaths in the past 24 hours, but that figure likely includes “probable” virus-linked deaths, which had not previously been counted, AFP reported. 

This week, New York City said it would add 3,778 “probable” virus deaths to its official count.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a toll Friday night of 33,049 dead, including 4,226 probable virus-linked deaths.

The United States has seen the highest death toll in the world in the coronavirus pandemic, ahead of Italy (22,745 deaths) although its population is just a fifth of that of the US.

People walk under trees with cherry blossoms in Berlin, Germany, March 22, 2020, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) continues/ Reuters

Germany’s confirmed coronavirus cases have risen by 3,609 to 137,439, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday, marking a fourth straight day of a spike in new infections.

The death toll has risen by 242 to 4,110, the tally showed, Reuters reported. 

Thailand reports 33 new coronavirus infections, bringing the nation’s total to 2,733 cases, a senior official said on Saturday.

Eleven of the new cases were in Bangkok and had a history of going to public areas, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration, Reuters reported. 

No new deaths were reported and 1,787 people have recovered, he said.

Thailand has reported 47 fatalities since the outbreak escalated in January.

The novel coronavirus has killed 1,000 people across Africa since the pandemic emerged late last year, according to an AFP tally using official figures.

Algeria is the African country with the highest number of deaths at 364, followed by Egypt with 205, Morocco 135 and South Africa 50, according to the figures compiled at 2000 GMT Friday.

African countries have recorded a total of 19,334 infections since the virus emerged in China in late December, the figures show.

Africa has so far suffered less than other regions from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus — at least according to official numbers.

But limited testing in many countries has deprived African officials of a full picture of the disease’s spread.

Photo : Collected

Health experts have warned of the devastation the deadly virus could cause in Africa, where most hospitals are desperately short of equipment and trained staff.

The World Health Organization last month warned Africa faced a dramatic evolution of the pandemic even as governments imposed restrictions, curfews and travel bans to help curb the spread. The continent appears poorly equipped to manage a major health crisis and is struggling to test enough to monitor virus cases.

Containment measures in poorer parts of Africa have also been difficult to enforce in impoverished and densely populated neighbourhoods, where houses are overcrowded and most survive thanks to informal work.

The World Bank and IMF said on Friday that Africa needs $44 billion more to fight the coronavirus pandemic despite a freeze in debt payments for many countries and massive pledges of support to help the continent prepare for a possible surge in infections and the economic fallout.

Mexican health officials reported on Friday 578 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 60 new deaths, bringing the country’s total to 6,875 cases and 546 deaths.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Thursday the country might have nearly 56,000 people infected with the fast-spreading coronavirus, Reuters reported. 

Citing government models, Lopez-Gatell has said many who are infected likely did not have symptoms or were not diagnosed.

France on Friday reported 761 more deaths from Covid-19 in hospitals and nursing homes over the last 24 hours but welcomed new falls in the total numbers of coronavirus patients.

The new deaths — 418 in hospitals and 343 in nursing homes — brought the total toll in the country from the epidemic to 18,681, AFP reported. 

But in more positive news, the total numbers in hospital fell for the third day in a row — with 115 fewer patients — and the numbers in intensive care fell for the ninth consecutive day with 221 fewer patients.

The country’s month-long lockdown “is starting to bear fruit,” said top Health Official Jerome Salomon, while urging: “We have to continue our efforts in confinement.”

He described the fall in intensive care and hospital numbers as “slow but constant” and said France was seeing now a slowing in in spread of the epidemic. 

He said spread “had been mitigated very well by all the French” through respecting the confinement orders and social distance recommendations while outside.

A view shows the deserted Iena Bridge near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, during a lockdown imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in France, April 8, 2020/ Reuters

“We have strongly broken the epidemic which at the beginning was very contagious, with a virus that was being transmitted to a very large number of people,” said Salomon.

France has been in lockdown since March 17 in a bid to slow the spread of the epidemic. But President Emmanuel Macron announced this week that the lockdown could begin to be eased from May 11.

He said schools could gradually reopen then but cafes, cinemas and cultural venues would remain closed, and there could be no summer festivals until mid-July at the earliest.

World coronavirus deaths passed 150,000 as of yesterday.

COVID-19 fatalities mounted in the United States and hard-hit Western Europe countries, but fresh data on rising infections and deaths in Africa showed the virus is leaving no continent untouched as it marches around the globe, AFP reported. 

More than half of humanity — 4.5 billion people — were confined to their homes, with evidence mounting of social distancing’s success in slowing the pandemic.

But widespread nervousness remained over when and how to ease widespread confinement measures to revive the world economy, battered by what the International Monetary Fund has dubbed the “Great Lockdown”.

More than 2.2 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in 193 countries and territories, according to figures collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO).

North Korean authorities told citizens in public lectures that there were confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the country as early as the end of March, in contrast to official Pyongyang claims that it has not had any confirmed cases, Radio Free Asia reported on late Friday.

The lecturers, speaking to organisations and neighbourhood watch groups, said there were Covid- 19 cases within the country, without giving any numbers, Radio Free Asia (RFA) said, citing two sources, one in Pyongyang and one in Ryanggang province reports Reuters

The lecturers said the confirmed cases were in Pyongyang, South Hwanghae province and North Hamgyong province, RFA reported.

Also Read