Lockdown toll mounts, infection passes 500k

WASHINGTON - The human and economic toll of the lockdowns against the coronavirus mounted on Thursday as India struggled to feed the multitudes, Italy shuts down most of its industry, and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week.

The US surpassed official Chinese government numbers to become the country with most reported infections.

As the number of cases worldwide topped a half-million and deaths climbed past 24,000, the damage to people’s livelihoods and their wellbeing from the effort to flatten the rising curve started to come into focus.

In India, where the country’s 1.3 billion people were under orders to stay home, legions of poor were suddenly thrown out of work, and many families were left struggling for something to eat.

“Our first concern is food, not the virus,” said Suresh Kumar, 60, a bicycle rickshaw rider in

New Delhi whose family of six relies on his daily earnings of 300 rupees, or $F9. “I don’t know how I will manage.”

India has the world’s secondhighest number of people living in extreme poverty, with produce peddlers, maids and other lowwage workers living day to day. The government announced a 1.7 trillion rupee ($F52 billion) economic stimulus package to deliver monthly rations of grain and lentils to 800 million people.

Around the globe, the death toll rose to about 8200 in Italy, 4300 in Spain and 1700 in France, including a 16-year-old. The US had about 1300 deaths, about 400 of them in New York State, the worst hotspot in the nation. Most of those victims were in New York City, where hospitals are getting swamped.

A running count kept by Johns Hopkins University showed the United States now had the most reported cases of any country on Thursday, with more than 85,000. Italy and China, the latter of which was the origin of the outbreak late last year, both had reported more than 80,000.

Louisiana was quickly becoming another smoldering hotspot. The number of new cases there jumped by more than 500 on Thursday, for a total of over 2300, with 86 deaths, including a 17-year-old, the health department said.

The higher infection numbers reflected an increase in testing. New Orleans was gearing up for a possible overflow at hospitals, with plans to treat as many as 3000 patients at the city’s convention centre.

From New York’s Fifth Avenue and London’s Piccadilly Circus to the boulevards of Paris and the streets of Rome and Madrid, restaurants, hotels, airlines, giant chains and small shops are all shuttered, and factories across both continents have ground to a halt, as cities, states and entire countries have ordered the closing of nonessential businesses and instructed people to stay home.

Companies in Europe are laying off workers at the fastest pace since 2009, according to surveys of business managers. And the US is bleeding jobs as well: The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week was nearly five times the old record, set in 1982.

Dann Dykas, 37, of Portland, Oregon, was laid off from his job helping design and set up displays for trade shows.

“Everything is so surreal,” he said. “I can’t even get an interview for another job, and we now have to worry more about being careful and taking care of ourselves.”

In Georgia, 33-year-old Ian Smith was let go from his job at a wine bar and is working “side hustles” and relying on the generosity of friends.

“On my worst days, it’s hopelessness, and on some of my better days, it’s ‘What possibility can I create in all of this?’” he said. “I can’t pretend that I always feel that, though.”

In a rare positive sign, stocks rallied on Wall Street for the third straight day after an unprecedented $2.2 trillion economic rescue package to help businesses, hospitals and ordinary Americans pull through the crisis won passage in the Senate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more than 1350 points, or over six per cent.

The rescue plan, which is expected to be voted on in the House on Friday, would dispense checks of $1200 per adult and $500 per child.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, announced that federal officials are developing guidelines to rate counties by risk of virus spread, as he aims to ease the restrictions meant to slow the outbreak.

Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said the task force is concerned about certain counties in the Midwest that appear to be seeing a rapid increase in cases. She listed two: Wayne County in Michigan and Cook County in Illinois.

Montana joined the growing list of US states ordering residents to stay home to fight the virus’ spread.