COVID-19 cases hit 18,638 as Philippines eases virus lockdown

Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces Sunday that the federal government will send resources and support to Ontario, the province battling a worrying spike in Covid infections.

Ottawa will mobilize health professionals from different federal departments and deploy them to Ontario, particularly the Toronto region, where "the situation is most critical," Trudeau says in a video posted to Twitter.

The government is also in discussion with multiple provinces, including Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, to free up personnel and equipment resources "over the coming days," the prime minister says. —  AFP

Update: As the number of COVID-19 cases in Ontario climbs to levels we’ve never seen before, we’re working with the province and taking serious action to protect Ontarians. To do that, and to help fight this third wave, we’re providing additional, emergency support. Thread ??

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) April 18, 2021

Fiji orders two of its largest cities into lockdown Monday after the Pacific island nation recorded its first case of Covid-19 community transmission in 12 months.

Health authorities said the case was a 53 year-old woman who was a close contact of a soldier who contracted the virus at a quarantine facility in Nadi.

"To aid rapid contact tracing and reduce the likelihood of further transmission, we are announcing a lockdown of the greater Nadi and Lautoka area, starting from 4:00am this morning," the health department says in a statement. —  AFP

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 3,000,955 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.

At least 139,869,290 cases of coronavirus have been registered. 

The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later. 

The global coronavirus death toll is expected to reach three million on Saturday, as the race for immunization continues and countries like India grapple with rising infections and new lockdowns.

The virus that surfaced in late 2019 in central China and the ensuing pandemic has infected more than 100 million people, leaving billions more under crippling lockdowns and ravaging the global economy.

India's capital New Delhi went into a weekend lockdown Saturday as the world's second-most populous nation faces more than 200,000 fresh daily cases and families clamouring for drugs and hospital beds. — AFP

Public hospitals are critically short on the drugs needed to intubate Covid-19 patients in Sao Paulo, the most populous state in Brazil, officials said Thursday, warning of a potential public health catastrophe.

Sixty-eight percent of public clinics have run out of neuromuscular blockers, which are used to relax a patient's muscles during intubation, and 61 percent are out of sedatives, a report from the state council of municipal health secretaries (Cosems-SP) found.

"The situation regarding supplies of medications for intubation worsened over the past week," it said, amid a deadly new surge of Covid-19 in Brazil. —  AFP