Nations compete in ‘worldwide treasure hunt’ for

SCARCE supplies of medical equipment are leading to growing competition among nations, in what one French politician called a “worldwide treasure hunt”.

The governor of New York state, the epicentre of the US outbreak, vowed to seize unused ventilators from private hospitals and companies, while President Donald Trump said he was preventing the export of N95 respirator masks and surgical gloves, a move he said was necessary to ensure that medical supplies are available in the US.

The number of people infected in the US exceeded a quarter of a million, and the death toll climbed past 7,000, with New York state alone accounting for more than 2,900 dead, an increase of over 560 in just one day.

Most of the dead are in New York City, where hospitals are swamped with patients. Worldwide, confirmed infections rose past one million and deaths topped 60,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Experts say both numbers are seriously undercounted because of the lack of testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are underplaying the crisis.

Europe’s three worst-hit countries – Italy, Spain and France – accounted for more than 32,000 dead, or over half the global toll.

In China, where the novel coronavirus was first detected in December, flags flew at half-mast and air raid sirens sounded for three minutes on a day of remembrance for the dead.

China has cautiously lifted restrictions amid dropping numbers of infections and on Saturday, reported just one new confirmed case in the epicentre of Wuhan and 18 others among people arriving from abroad. There were four new deaths for an official total of 3,326.

South Korea extended for two weeks guidelines urging people to stick to social distancing as infections continue to grow in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area.

During a meeting on anti-virus measures on Saturday, Prime Minster Chung Sye-kyun expressed concern over rising infections linked to recent arrivals.

The US snapped its record-breaking hiring streak of nearly 10 years