No new local Covid case for third straight day in China

Soldiers were being drafted in to help enforce the lockdown in Italy on Friday as officials announced 627 new deaths, the largest singleday toll anywhere in the world since the coronavirus outbreak began.

Desperate scenes have unfolded in the north of the country, particularly the hard-hit Lombardy region where infections first exploded last month, as hospitals struggle to treat thousands of cases.

And Chinese medical experts helping Italy deal with the crisis have said the restrictions imposed in Lombardy are “not strict enough.”

The government has now agreed that the military can be used to help enforce the lockdown, the president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, told a news conference on Friday.

“(The request to use the army) has been accepted... and 114 soldiers will be on the ground throughout Lombardy... it is still too little, but it is positive,” Fontana said. “Unfortunately we are not seeing a change of trend in the numbers, which are rising.”

The soldiers had until now been deployed in the region to ensure general security in the streets.

More than 4,000 people have now died from the disease in Italy, the country’s civil protection agency said on Friday — more than any other nation — and nearly 6,000 new infections were confirmed in the past day, bringing the total to more than 47,000 cases.

Daniela Confalonieri, an Italian nurse in Milan, the region’s capital, said the situation was so dire that the dead were no longer being counted.

“We’re working in a state of very high stress and tension,” Confalonieri said. “Unfortunately we can’t contain the situation in Lombardy, there’s a high level of contagion and we’re not even counting the dead any more.

“Look at the news that’s coming out of Italy and take note of what the situation really is like. It’s unimaginable.”

A hospital doctor in Bergamo, another Lombardy city, said it had been hit so hard by the coronavirus that it is now sending patients who need intensive care to other parts of the country.

“Bergamo is sending ICU patients to other regions because we ran out (of space),” Dr. Stefano Magnone said on Friday.

Beijing, March 21: China reported no domestically transmitted coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Saturday, even as seven more fatalities were confirmed from the virus’ epicentre of Hubei Province, taking the death toll in the country to 3,255.

The coronavirus death toll has gone up to 11,397 with more than 275,427 cases reported in over 160 countries and territories, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Italy has overtaken China as the worst-hit with over over 4,000 deaths reported so far.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said on Saturday that no new domestically transmitted cases of Covid-19 were reported on the Chinese mainland for the third day in a row on Friday.

On Friday, seven deaths and 36 new suspected cases were reported on the mainland, with all the deaths reported from the virus’ epicentre Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, it said.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland have reached 81,008 by the end of Friday, which included 3,255 deaths, 6,013 patients still undergoing treatment, 71,740 patients who have been discharged after recovery, the NHC said.

The commission said that 106 people were still suspected of being infected with the virus.

The NHC said 41 new confirmed Covid-19 cases were reported on the Chinese mainland on Friday from the people arriving from abroad, taking the total number of imported cases to 269.

While reporting about a steady increase in imported cases, the NHC did not specify whether the infected persons were foreigners or Chinese nationals returning from abroad.

China has imposed strict quarantine measures for all those returning from other countries.

Of the imported cases on Friday, 14 were reported in Beijing, nine in Shanghai, seven in the Guangdong Province and four in the Fujian Province.

Provinces of Zhejiang, Shandong and Shaanxi each reported two cases and Sichuan reported one.

By the end of Friday, 256 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 17 confirmed cases in Macao and 135 in Taiwan including two deaths, the NHC said.

As the center of the virus continues to shift to the West, the rate of infection has been slowing for weeks in China.