Virus toll tops 250k

Number of fatalities climbs as billions raised for vaccine push

GLOBAL deaths from the coronavirus pandemic topped a quarter-million yesterday, mostly in the US and Europe even as both regions slowly moved away from lockdown and world leaders raised billions towards a vaccine.

An AFP tally of official figures shows Europe is the hardest-hit continent with about 145,000 fatalities, and the United States recorded close to 68,700 – together accounting for more than 85 per cent of global fatalities.

An internal government estimate in Washington forecast an even worsening number of fatalities for the country.

It said the daily COVID-19 death toll could double by the end of May.

In Europe, though, governments believe they have passed the peak of the disease with deaths in the continent’s worst affected countries having dropped as a result of nearly two months of confinement.

Restaurants in Italy partially reopened and Germans queued for haircuts in a Europe edging gingerly out of lockdown.

Half of the planet has been under orders to shelter in place. Still, confirmed cases since the disease surfaced in

China late last year rose to almost 3.6 million across 195 countries and territories.

A special telethon backed by the World Health Organisation but snubbed by the Trump administration pulled in 7.4 billion euros ($12.5 billion) to support international efforts to develop and manufacture a vaccine to slow the coronavirus spread.

Leaders of major European powers, Japan and Canada made the biggest pledges, along with philanthropists including Bill and Melinda Gates, at the videoconference hosted by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.

“This was a powerful and inspiring demonstration of global solidarity,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the donations.