US coronavirus deaths pass bleak 10,000 milestone
WASHINGTON, United States — Americans were put on notice Monday not to let up in the fight against the coronavirus, as a grim milestone of 10,000 deaths cast a pall over the first signs of optimism about the trajectory of the outbreak.
The United States has emerged as one of the world's worst-hit nations, with a steadily mounting number of fatalities and millions facing the possibility of economic ruin.
Authorities began the week by telling frightened communities to brace for one of the worst periods yet in the crisis as the outbreak has not yet reached its peak.
Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, which has been keeping a running tally of coronavirus numbers, said at least 356,942 US cases had been confirmed, with 10,524 deaths.
Only Italy (15,877) and Spain (13,055) have seen more of their citizens killed by the deadly pandemic.
There was a glimmer of hope however in New York, the main focus of the US outbreak, where there have been more than 4,750 deaths statewide and 130,000 cases.
Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday the death rate had been "effectively flat" for two days. The state reported 599 new deaths, similar to Sunday's tally of 594 and down from a record 630 on Saturday.
But the governor ordered schools and non-essential businesses to remain shut for a further three weeks, telling reporters: "Now is not the time to be lax."
'Social distancing is working'
"It is hopeful but it is also inconclusive," Cuomo said, adding that it would be a "mistake" to relax restrictions too early.
"If the curve is turning, it's because the rate of infection is going down. If the rate of infection is going down, it's because social distancing is working."
The pandemic has killed nearly 75,000 worldwide since the emergence of the new coronavirus in December in China, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources.
Authorities have warned that between 100,000 and 240,000 people could die in the United States, even in a best-case scenario with social distancing guidelines being observed.
Nine states — all controlled by Republican governors — have still not yet ordered total lockdowns, much to the frustration of public health experts.
Wisconsin, which is among those under stay-at-home orders, became the 15th state to delay presidential primaries after initially determining to forge ahead.
Governor Tony Evers, citing the risk to poll workers and voters, ordered that Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary and local elections in the Midwestern US state be postponed until June.
"I cannot in good conscience stand by and do nothing," said Evers, whose health officials have registered 2,267 positive tests and 68 deaths.
Evers moved to delay the election unilaterally after the Republican-majority state Senate and state Assembly ignored his repeated appeals for a postponement.
Pathway from crisis
Although hotspots like New York face a dire lack of protective gear, ventilators and medics, there was further cause for optimism, with early-hit states like Washington and California demonstrating a possible pathway out of the crisis.
Washington appears to be on the downward slope of its case curve and has even sent 400 ventilators to New York, but its governor Jay Inslee said he feared a second wave because of the ongoing patchwork response.
"Even if Washington gets on top of this fully, if another state doesn't, it can come back and come across our borders two months from now, so this is important to have a national success," he told NBC.
California is also showing how it is possible to get on top of the crisis, said epidemiologist Brandon Brown of the University of California, Riverside.
"We are now ramping up testing, starting to measure community spread, preparing spaces for when hospitals may be overrun," he said.
On the sports front, the golf world has reconfigured its schedule — the Masters will now be in November, and the US Open and Ryder Cup will go ahead on back-to-back weeks in September.
"Sports, and particularly the game of golf, are important vehicles for healing and hope," said PGA of America chief executive Seth Waugh.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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