Help demanded from EU; New Yorkers avoid travel
SPAIN AND Italy have demanded more European help as they fight stillsurging coronavirus infections in the continent’s worst crisis since World War II. In the United States, authorities urged millions around New York City to stop travelling to keep the virus contained.
Around the world, doctors were forced to make tough choices about which patients to save with the limited breathing machines they have. The confirmed global death toll surpassed 31,000 and new virus epicentres emerged in US cities like Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago. Even rural America has not been immune, as virus hotspots erupt in Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens.
Spain and Italy alone account for more than half of the world’s death toll, and are still seeing more than 800 deaths a day each.
Experts say, however, that virus toll numbers across the world are being seriously underrepresented because of limited testing and political decisions about which bodies to count. Unlike the US, France and Italy do not count deaths that take place at home or in nursing homes, even though nursing homes are known coronavirus incubators around the world.
FIGHT FOR RESPONSE
‘’Europe must demonstrate that it is able to respond to this historic call,’’ Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said late Saturday. “I will fight until the last drop of sweat, until the last gram of energy, to obtain a strong, vigorous, cohesive
European response.”
President Donald Trump backtracked on a threat to quarantine New York and neighbouring states amid criticism and questions about the legality of such a move. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory, urging all residents of New York City and others in New York state, New Jersey, and Connecticut to avoid all non-essential travel for 14 days.
Shocking as that is for Americans, that stopped short of the restrictions imposed in Europe or elsewhere. Parisians are fined if they try to leave the city, South Africans can’t even buy liquor, and Serbians are upset over a ban on walking their dog. In Italy, burials are being held with only one family member.
Spain moved to tighten its lockdown and ban all nonessential work on Sunday as it hit another daily record of 838 dead. The country’s overall official toll was more than 6,500.
Spain’s health emergencies chief, Fernando Simón, said the country’s infection rate fell Sunday to nine per cent, down from 18 per cent three days before. But he said the number of people in intensive care units keeps rising and hospitals are at their limits in several regions.
“That is why we have to strictly apply the control measures,”he said.
The crisis is pummelling world economies and putting huge strains on national healthcare systems. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for a more vigorous response from the 27-nation European Union.
“It is the most difficult moment for the EU since its foundation and it has to be ready to rise to the challenge,” he said.
Spain, Italy, France and six other EU members have asked the union to share the burden by issuing European debt, dubbed ‘coronabonds’, to help fight the virus. But the idea has met resistance from Germany and the Netherlands.