Australia locks down second city as global cases top 12 million
MELBOURNE, Australia — Millions of people in Australia's second-biggest city went into lockdown on Thursday to battle another coronavirus outbreak, as the number of infections worldwide surged past 12 million.
Caseloads and death tolls have risen relentlessly in many of the world's biggest nations, with the virus now claiming over 550,000 lives across the planet.
In Melbourne, five million people began a new lockdown just weeks after earlier restrictions ended as Australia battles a COVID-19 resurgence, with residents bracing for the emotional and economic costs.
"The idea of not being able to see people that you love and care for is really distressing, really distressing," said tearful Melbourne resident Monica Marshall, whose 91-year-old mother recently entered a care home.
Shoppers in the state of Victoria — of which Melbourne is the capital — stripped shelves bare on Wednesday before the lockdown began, and the country's largest supermarket chain said it had reimposed buying limits on items including pasta, vegetables and sugar.
'Virus thrives on division'
National and international responses to the virus are under the microscope, with US President Donald Trump's earlier criticism of the World Health Organization as a "puppet of China" coming to a head this week.
The US has begun its formal pullout from the UN body, which opened an inquiry into its handling of the pandemic on Thursday while issuing a strong message on the need for togetherness.
"The virus thrives on division but is thwarted when we unite," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The enquiry panel, led by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, will present initial findings next year.
The global death toll from the virus reached nearly 551,000, although nearly half of the 12.1 million reported cases being classed as recovered.
In a potentially worrying discovery, scientists in Italy said there was "strong evidence" that COVID-19 positive mothers can pass the virus on to their unborn children.
"Our study is aimed at raising awareness and inviting the scientific community to consider the pregnancy in positive women as an urgent topic to further characterise and dissect," said Claudio Fenizia, from the University of Milan and lead study author.
'I'm kind of scared'
Punishing lockdowns to try to prevent the spread of the disease have led to catastrophic economic downturns.
The pandemic could push 45 million people from the middle classes into poverty in already economically troubled Latin America and the Caribbean, the United Nations warned Thursday.
The United States remains the worst-hit nation but Trump remains keen for the economy to restart despite warnings about the dangers of reopening too soon.
He has even faced off with his own government's experts, lashing out at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for issuing school reopening guidelines that he complained were too restrictive.
While a spike in coronavirus cases has forced some states to again close bars and restaurants, the measures do not seem to be affecting the steady drop in new claims for unemployment benefits — with the number at 1.3 million last week according to US government figures.
Local officials in many parts of the US are scrambling to contain the virus and several areas have cancelled plans to reopen, with tens of thousands of new cases reported each day.
The Trump administration has set off alarm bells among foreign students at American universities, saying they cannot stay in the United States if their entire courses are forced online because of the pandemic.
"I'm kind of scared... I don't have anyone to take care of me if I get ill," said an Indian graduate student in Texas, who asked not to be named.
Chaos in Belgrade
As talk of a second wave of the virus multiplies, some of the world's most populous nations including India, Pakistan and Brazil are still reeling from their first outbreaks.
In the Middle East, hard-hit Iran reported a record single-day death toll of 221, taking its total to over 12,300.
In Europe, where many nations have successfully suppressed their outbreaks, France continued to re-emerge from the darkest days, announcing the Eiffel Tower would reopen its top level for the first time in three months.
Gyms, swimming pools and outdoors are set to reopen in England later this month as the government further eases lockdown restrictions.
However, countries further east that had lifted their lockdowns sooner than France have found themselves plunged back into restrictions with a resurgent virus.
Bulgaria banned sports fans from stadiums and shut bars and clubs and Serbia announced that it would reinstate a weekend curfew -- sparking two nights of violent protests.
Police fought with outraged demonstrators in Belgrade late on Wednesday, with clouds of tear gas and smoke filling the city centre, a day after thousands came out to protest against the return of the lockdown.
Critics have accused the president of inviting a second wave of infections by lifting the initial lockdown too soon.
"The government only seeks to protect its own interests," said 53-year-old Jelina Jankovic at the rally.
Sport continues to be affected. The final eight of the European Champions League in Lisbon is set to go ahead behind closed doors after UEFA confirmed Thursday that all matches in European competitions would be played without spectators "until further notice". — Ryan Smith with Robin Millard in Geneva and AFP bureaus
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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