4mn cases as IMF sees growth worsening Health workers set to get 40k US green cards
WHO says animal markets should stay; 6-week-old baby is UK’S youngest victim
WASHINGTON/ LONDON/ BERLIN: The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday signalled a possible downward revision of global economic forecasts, and warned the US and China against rekindling a trade war that could weaken a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The IMF’S chilling warning has come at a time when the number of Covid-19 infections worldwide has crossed 4 million.
Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’S managing director, told an online event hosted by the European University Institute that recent economic data for many countries was coming in below the fund’s pessimistic forecast for a 3% contraction in 2020. “With no medical solutions, more adverse scenarios might materialise for some economies,” Georgieva said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that although a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan selling live animals likely played a role in the emergence of the coronavirus, it does not recommend that such markets be shut down globally. In a press briefing, WHO food safety and animal diseases expert Peter Ben Embarek said live animal markets are critical to providing food and livelihoods for millions of people globally.
Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas has said in a statement that Europe must acknowledge that it “wasn’t well-prepared” for the pandemic.
BRITAIN CONSIDERING NEW QUARANTINE PLAN
Britain is to introduce a 14-day quarantine period for almost everyone arriving into the country to avoid a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic, according to media reports.
Also, a six-week-old baby has become the youngest victim of the coronavirus in England . The baby’s death on Friday comes as Britain prepares for some easing in the strict lockdown measures in place.
WASHINGTON: A bipartisan group of US senators have introduced a legislation to grant 40,000 unused green cards to foreign nurses and physicians to fight Covid-19.
The bill proposes to grant 25,000 green cards to nurses and the rest 15,000 to physicians, which include both those hired abroad or those already in the US.
The US grants around 1 million green cards a year, subject to a per-country limit of 7%. The queue of applicants from India for employment-based green cards is already very long, with waiting periods of more than 100 years at the current rate of disposal of cases, and it could not be ascertained if Indian medial professionals will be able to circumvent this queue.
“One-sixth of our health care workforce is foreign-born. Immigrant nurses and doctors play a vital role in our health care system, and their contributions are now more crucial than ever. Where would we be in this pandemic without them?” said Democrat senator Richard Durbin.
The Trump administration had suspended all immigrant visas for 60 days.