Leaders around the globe appealed for solidarity to battle a threat that appeared to expand exponentially.
In Italy, death toll balloons to 1,266 after 1-day spike
MADRID — Coronavirus deaths accelerated in Europe and soared to their highest single-day toll in Italy on Friday as nations around the world warned of nearly wartime measures to contain the pandemic.
While the exponential spread of the virus in Europe, North America and the Middle East has dashed any hopes for a quick containment, dozens of countries have imposed increasingly draconian measures — shutting borders, expanding testing, closing school for tens of millions of children and ordering tens of thousands of businesses to close their doors — to try to face down the disease.
The pandemic showed that power and influence offer no protection. Among those testing positive were the Canadian prime minister’s wife, a top aide to Iran’s supreme leader, Miami’s mayor and a Brazilian official who met with President Donald Trump.
France’s president announced that leaders of the world’s largest democracies, the G-7, would hold a video-conference summit Monday to discuss coordinating research on a vaccine and treatments, as well as an economic response.
Channeling wartime rhetoric and tactics in the face of a microscopic enemy, leaders appealed for solidarity to battle a threat that appeared to expand exponentially. They vowed to protect not just the sick, but those sacrificing their livelihoods and education for the greater good. But new border checks were also on the rise, showing that solidarity had its limits in the face of a fast-moving threat.
In Italy, new infections soared by more than 2,500 and virusrelated deaths made their biggest single day jump, increasing by 250. On Friday, three weeks to the day since the country identified its first virus cluster in the north, Italy had a total of 17,600 confirmed cases, with 1,266 deaths.
“Europe has now become the epicenter of the pandemic with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
New infections also rose sharply in Spain, and the government put 60,000 people in four towns on a mandatory lockdown Friday that echoed Italy’s. In Madrid, which is struggling with nearly 2,000 infections, many in nursing homes, the government was pooling intensive care units and considering offers by hotel chains to transform rooms into sick wards.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced a two-week state of emergency beginning Saturday
and pledged to “mobilize all resources,” including military, to contain the country’s sharp rise in coronavirus cases.
In just 24 hours, the numbers of confirmed cases were spiking ominously in some places: France saw an additional 800 cases to reach more than 3,600 by Friday and Britain went from 590 to 798.
In Europe and the United States, leaders and medical experts tried to predict the future — or at least the next few weeks — by scrutinizing the virus’ trajectory, especially in China and Italy, the epicenters of Asia and Europe. The governors of six states — Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, New
York, Rhode Island and Washington — sought National Guard troops.
Worldwide, 137,000 people have been infected and more than 5,000 have died, but half of those who had the virus have already recovered. Most patients have mild or moderate symptoms such as a fever or cold, but severe symptoms including pneumonia can occur, especially in the elderly and people with existing health problems.
Cracks also appeared amid the calls for global solidarity.
European officials pushed back against Trump’s sharp restrictions on travel from the continent.
“Instead of tending to the problems of his country, and to a virus that knows no borders, he thinks that he can fight it like people that have a different citizenship than American,” said German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.
“But this is a virus, if I may say so, and it actually shows that solidarity is the only way that we can move forward as human beings.”
And new travel restrictions sprang up practically by the hour Friday: Switzerland, Sri Lanka, Portugal, the Czech Republic — all started barring entry to Europeans considered at risk. Canada and Denmark joined the United States in advising citizens to avoid trips abroad, and Americans in Europe caught increasingly rare transAtlantic flights back home.
The European Union urged member countries to put health screening procedures in place at their borders.
China, where the virus emerged late last year, still accounts for more than 60% of global infections but Friday reported just eight new cases and seven deaths.