Wave of daily records continues

MILAN/CHICAGO: The United States, Russia, France and many other countries are setting records for coronavirus infections as a tidal wave of cases washes over parts of the northern hemisphere, forcing some countries to impose new curbs.

The gloom weighed on global financial markets yesterday as surging infections clouded the economic outlook.

US stocks had their worst day in four weeks over the double whammy of record coronavirus cases and political deadlock in negotiations to provide more economic aid.

Word that a vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc produced immune responses in both elderly and young people offered some positive news as autumn turns to winter in northern countries and more people socialise indoors.

But British Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned the vaccine would not be widely available until next year. Any vaccine faces both scientific and public relations hurdles. Surveys have shown only about half of Americans would get a Covid19 vaccination due to concerns about safety, effectiveness and the approval process.

In the United States, the number of hospitalised Covid19 patients was at a twomonth high, straining healthcare systems. President Donald Trump repeated his unfounded claim that cases are rising because there is more testing, an assertion rejected by experts and not supported by data.

‘‘Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all time high,’’ he tweeted.

The number of new Covid19 cases in the United States last week rose 24% while the number of tests performed rose 5.5%, according to a Reuters analysis.

In Europe, the picture was unrelentingly grim as a string of countries reported record increases, led by France, which posted more than 50,000 daily cases for the first time on Monday as the continent passed the threshold of 250,000 deaths.

France might even be experiencing 100,000 new infections a day, Prof JeanFrancois Delfraissy, who heads a council that advises the government, told RTL radio.

Governments have been desperate to avoid the lockdowns that curbed the disease earlier in the year at the cost of shutting down their entire economies. But the steady rise in new cases has forced many in Europe to tighten curbs.

‘‘We are facing very, very difficult months ahead,’’ German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of leaders from her Christian Democrat party, according to daily Bild.

She planned ‘‘lockdown light’’ that would focus on closing bars, restaurants and public events, the newspaper said.

The Spanish government faced a backlash over its plans to put one of Europe’s worst Covid19 hot spots under a sixmonth state of emergency. Opposition parties said six months was too long, epidemiologists said this might be too little too late and some citizens balked at nightly curfews.

Russia’s daily tally of new infections surged to a record 17,347 yesterday as the Kremlin warned the pandemic was beginning to take a greater toll outside Moscow.

With 1.5 million infections, the country of around 145 million people has recorded the world’s fourthlargest Covid19 case load, after the United States, India and Brazil.

Italy imposed new restrictions, ordering restaurants and bars to close from 6pm, shutting cinemas and gyms and imposing local curfews in several regions.

More than 43 million people are reported to have been infected globally and 1.15 million have died, according to a Reuters tally. — Reuters