European cases keep on climbing
NEW YORK: New Covid19 infections climbed in Spain, Italy, France and Germany on Thursday (local time), while the United Kingdom said it was extending its lockdown by a further three weeks to fight the spreading pandemic.
For European leaders, the increasing numbers signalled no letup in the need to balance the severe economic damage caused by the tight restrictions to fight the pandemic with the increasing death toll and the danger that prematurely easing lockdowns could spark a second wave of infections.
‘‘Relaxing any of the measures in place would damage both public health and the economy,’’ British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is standing in for Boris Johnson while the Prime Minister recovers from an infection with the virus, said.
‘‘The worst thing we could do right now is ease up too soon and allow a second peak of the virus.’’
Spain, which has the secondmost cases behind the United States, reported the biggest daily increase in infections in a week. Last night, the United States had 678,210 cases and Spain had 184,948.
Italy, which had 168,941 cases last night and where Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is considering plans to ease restrictions, reported 525 new cases in a day, the most new cases in four days as tests rose to a daily record of 60,999. The number of deaths, hospitalised patients and intensive care patients all declined from the day before.
President Emmanuel Macron in France, which reported the most new cases in a single day on Thursday, has extended his lockdown and said the country was underprepared.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has started the slow process of easing restrictions, though some limits are set to remain for months.
On a conference call of Group of Seven leaders, Merkel defended the work of the World Health Organisation after US President Donald Trump said it took China’s claims about Covid19 ‘‘at face value’’ and failed to share information about the pandemic as it spread. Washington has said it is cutting funding to the United Nations agency.
‘‘The chancellor made it clear that the pandemic can only be defeated with a strong and coordinated international response,’’ her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said.
‘‘In this context, she expressed full support for the WHO as well as a number of other partners.’’
In contrast, the
White House said the G7 leaders agreed the WHO needed ‘‘a thorough review and reform process’’.
‘‘Much of the conversation centred on the lack of transparency and chronic mismanagement of the pandemic by the WHO,’’ it said.
To deal with the pandemic’s battering of their economies, the heads of the European Union’s main institutions said the bloc must increase its budget resources as they seek a way around the gridlock over joint bond issuance.
EU leaders would have a ‘‘strategic discussion’’ about the spending plan during a conference call next week, European Council president Charles Michel said.
Macron, in an interview with the Financial Times, said the EU needed ‘‘financial transfers and solidarity’’ to ‘‘hold on’’ through the coronavirus crisis. Failure to support the hardesthit EU member states would help populists to victory in Italy, Spain and perhaps France and elsewhere, he said. — Bloomberg News/Reuters