Covid claims 2 million lives
Experts in China fear global coronavirus fatalities could touch 5.1 million by the beginning of March
GENEVA/BEIJING: As the global death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic crossed the dreaded 2 million mark on Friday according to the widely followed coronavirus tracker Worldometer, researchers from China expressed fears that the tally could reach 5.1 million by the beginning of March.
The worldwide count of Covid-19 infections could reach 110170 million by that time, believe experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, other research institutes, and those affiliated with the Chinese military. The number of cases globally has already topped 93 million with the US, India and Brazil among the worst-hit countries.
In Brazil, the city of Manaus scrambled to provide oxygen to Covid-19 patients as doctors were forced to choose which of them would breathe, amid dwindling stocks and an effort to airlift some of them to other states.
There is added concern in the country following the discovery of a new variant of the virus, which is suspected to be behind a nationwide spike and was recently detected in Japan.
Britain has said that it was suspending all arrivals from South America due to the new strain.
In the US, President-elect Joe Biden has unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan to end what he called “a crisis of deep human suffering” by speeding up vaccines and pumping out financial help to those struggling with the pandemic’s economic fallout.
Biden proposed $1,400 cheques for most Americans, which on top of $600 provided in the most recent Covid-19 bill, would bring the total to $2,000.
China, meanwhile, reported the highest daily tally of Covid-19 cases in 10 months for Thursday, official data showed on Friday, as authorities appealed to citizens to cut down on non-essential travel during the upcoming Chinese New Year holidays when hundreds of millions travel home. A total of 144 new cases were reported for January 14.
Germany’s total coronavirus cases topped 2 million on Friday, as Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed for a “significant” tightening of restrictions to slow the infection rate.
The EU’s most populous country added another 22,368 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 2,000,958. It also reported another 1,113 fatalities from Covid-19, taking the overall death toll up to 44,994.
Pushed by fears of new variants of the coronavirus, France said it would impose a daily nationwide curfew at 6pm starting on Saturday and remaining in force for at least two weeks. Most of France had already been under an 8pm curfew, with some areas, especially in the hard-hit east, already under the 6pm limit.