Italy, Spain suffer record virus deaths as infection rate surges

New Delhi, Mar 28
The number of Covid-19 cases continued to surge worldwide and had crossed 600,000 with as many as 27,862 deaths till Saturday morning. Italy has the highest number of deaths at 9,134, followed by Spain (5,138) and China (3,174). Meanwhile, the United States is the worst infected country with 104,007 positive cases confirmed so far, followed by Italy (86,498) and China (81,906).
On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the global economy has entered a recession in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic which has brought several countries to a halt.
World has entered recession, says IMF
The IMF said the world is in the face of a devastating impact due to the coronavirus pandemic and has clearly entered a recession. However, it projected a recovery next year.
“We have reassessed the prospects for growth for 2020 and 2021. It is now clear that we have entered a recession as bad or worse than in 2009. We do project recovery in 2021,” IMF Managing Director Krista-lina Georgieva told reporters at a news conference.
Deaths surge in Italy, Spain
In Europe, Italy recorded its single biggest 24-hour rise in deaths, with 969 more victims, to bring its total number of fatalities to 9,134. The country now has more than 86,000 cases, surpassing China to record the grim distinction of the second-most infections in the world, behind the US.
Spain, with the world’s fourth-biggest number of cases, reported another 7,800 infections for a total of more than 64,000. The country said health workers accounted for about 15 percent of its cases. Deaths in Spain climbed past 4,900 _ the world’s second-highest total after Italy.
US has most Covid-19 cases; New York epicentre
The United States has registered over 1,00,000 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed. The biggest cluster by far is in New York, home to almost half the cases.
The death rate in the country based on confirmed cases is about 1.5 per cent, compared to around 10.5 per cent in Italy, AFP reported. This death rate figure could fall, as greater testing reveals more people who are positive but asymptomatic.
UN says 86 staffers around world reported cases
The United Nations has said that 86 of its staff members around the world have tested positive for Covid-19, AP reported. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Friday that most of the infected staff members are in Europe, but there are also staffers in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the United States that have been infected. He added that in order to reduce transmission, majority of UN staffers were working from home.
Meanwhile, at the UN headquarters in New York, where a normal day would see staffers’ passes swiped 11,000 times, the number of swipes Friday morning stood at 140, Dujarric said. In Geneva, he said, the number of staff at the UN  office has dropped from around 4,000 people on a regular day to just about 70 on Thursday. In Vienna, more than 97 per cent of UN staff are now working remotely, he said, and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 99 percent of staff are working from home.
South Korea reports 146 new coronavirus cases
South Korea has reported 146 new cases of the coronavirus and five more deaths, bringing its total to 9,478 cases and 144 deaths. South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 4,811 people have been released from hospitals as of Saturday, marking the first time the number of recoveries exceeded the number of people remaining under treatment since the country confirmed its first COVID-19 case on Jan. 21.
South Korea is tightening border controls and began enforcing two-week quarantines on South Korean nationals and foreigners with long-term stay visas arriving from the United States on Friday. Similar quarantines had already been in place for passengers coming from Europe.
South Korean Prime Minister Chung Se-kyun on Saturday called for Seoul and other local governments to strengthen their monitoring on South Koreans who returned from overseas after some of them triggered public anger by breaking quarantine and traveling to other regions before testing positive.
China to share coronavirus data with US: Donald Trump
China will share its data related to the novel Covid-19 with the US and the country will learn from Beijing’s experience, President Donald Trump said, a day after he held an hour-long conversation over telephone with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
This came days after the US President angered Beijing by referring to the coronavirus as “Chinese virus” and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying China’s ruling Communist Party posed a “substantial threat” to Americans’ health and their way of life.
As the US emerged as the next major epicentre of the virus, Xi assured full support to Trump but underlined that the infectious diseases did not recognise any border or race. “We talked about it (coronavirus) because he had additional experience of having been much earlier. And he has developed some incredible theories, and all that information is coming over here. A lot of it’s already come. We call it data. And we’re going to learn a lot from what the Chinese went through,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
Surge of hate speech toward Chinese on Twitter
The coronavirus outbreak has led to a 900 per cent uptick in hate speech toward China and Chinese people on Twitter, according to a report by a tech startup, news agency AFP reported.
“People are spending more and more time on social networks, communication apps, chat rooms and gaming services, and the problems endemic to these platforms — hate, abuse, toxicity and bullying — have become accentuated,” the Israel-based company L1ght said in its report.
Jordan registers first Covid-19 death
Jordan has announced its first death from the new coronavirus. State-run news agency Petra said Friday a woman in her 80s died from COVID-19. Jordan TV reported the woman had underlying medical conditions. There have been 235 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Arab kingdom. On March 21, Jordan imposed an indefinite full lockdown after it had shut down its airspace and other border crossings. The Indian Express