Britain’s virus death toll rivals Italy’s
LONDON — Britain on Tuesday became the first country in Europe to confirm more than 30,000 coronavirus deaths, and infections rose sharply again in Russia, even as other nations made great strides in containing the scourge. China marked its third week with no new reported deaths, while South Korea restarted its baseball season.
In the U.S., some states took continued steps to lift the lockdown restrictions that have thrown millions out of work, even as the country recorded thousands of new infections and deaths every day.
Underscoring the stakes, New York state reported 1,700 more people died in nursing homes than it had previously counted.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, planned to fly to Arizona to visit a Honeywell factory that makes respirator masks.
Britain appeared set to surpass Italy as Europe’s hardest-hit nation, even as the rate of deaths and hospitalization declined and the government prepared to take tentative steps out of lockdown.
The British government said about 28,700 people with COVID-19 had died in hospitals, nursing homes and other settings, while Italy reported close to 29,100 fatalities. Both figures are almost certainly underestimates because they include only people who tested positive, and testing was not widespread in Italian and British nursing homes until recently.
Yet official British statistics released Tuesday on people who died with suspected COVID-19 put the country’s toll at more than 30,000 as of April 24.
At the same time, many European countries that have relaxed strict lockdowns after new infections tapered off were watching their virus numbers warily.
“We know with great certainty that there will be a second wave — the majority of scientists are sure of that. And many also assume that there will be a third wave,” said Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany’s national disease control center.
Italy this week allowed 4.4 million people to go back to work and eased restrictions on personal movement for the first time in two months.
The coming weeks are essentially an “experiment” to see how the infection curve reacts to the easing of the West’s first lockdown, the head of infectious diseases at Italy’s Superior Institute of Health told the La Repubblica newspaper.
“We are not out of the epidemic. We are still in it,” said Dr. Giovanni Rezza.
In Britain, which unlike other European nations remains in lockdown, a trial began Tuesday of a mobile phone app that authorities hope will help contain the outbreak. The app, which warns people if they have been near an infected individual, is being tested on the Isle of Wight, off England’s southern coast. The government hopes it can be rolled out across the country later this month.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to soon detail a route out of the nationwide lockdown that began March 23 and runs through Thursday. Critics say Johnson’s Conservative government responded too slowly when COVID-19 began to spread, failed to contain the outbreak by not widely testing people with symptoms, then failed to trace and isolate the contacts of those infected.