Since its onset in China, the COVID-19 epidemic has killed at least 107,064 people worldwide, including more than 20,000 in the United States.
Easter weekend
Without processions or traditional religious services: more than 2 billion Christians will live an unprecedented Easter weekend. For the most important feast of the Christian tradition, the commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, according to these religions, it is on a screen that the faithful will follow the Easter Masses of a confined Pope Francis.
In Jerusalem, for the first time in more than a century, the Holy Sepulcher, where Christ was buried, according to Christian tradition, is closed to the public throughout the weekend.
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The most affected country remains the United States
Since its onset in China in December, the COVID-19 epidemic has killed at least 107,064 people worldwide.
If the epidemic is now globally contained in China, the country announced Sunday 97 new “imported cases” of contamination with the new Coronavirus, that is to say, due to people arriving from abroad, a level never reached since early March and the publication of this statement. Faced with this phenomenon, China closed its borders at the end of March to almost all foreigners.
The new imported cases are, therefore, mainly the result of Chinese returning home. The health authorities of Shanghai reported Sunday the arrival by the same flight from Russia of 51 infected people, all Chinese.
The United States recorded 1,920 new deaths from Coronavirus on Saturday evening in the past twenty-four hours, which constitutes a slight slowdown compared to the previous day, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. In total, in the country, the epidemic has caused 20,506 deaths, the most substantial toll for a country in the world, according to figures collected by this medical university based in Baltimore (east).
Mayor Bill de Blasio
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that public schools in the city will remain closed until the end of the school year. This will “clearly help save lives,” he said. Other bad news: more than 10% of the 4,800 crew members of the American aircraft carrier Theodore-Roosevelt have tested positive, reports a spokesman for the U.S. Navy.
Earlier in the day, Italy was close to 20,000 dead, according to a count by Agence France-Presse (AFP). At a press conference, the Italian government’s extraordinary commissioner for the Coronavirus, Domenico Arcuri, explained that “2.5 million tests will be distributed in the regions next week”.
Also, the results of the pandemic worsened in France (more than 13,800 dead) and in the United Kingdom, where a thousand people died in one day (nearly 10,000 dead), including an 11-year-old child.
The number of deaths caused by the pandemic also tripled in eight days in Belgium, with 3,019 deaths recorded.
Brazil
Brazil officially surpassed 1000 dead, including the first six deaths in favelas.
Containment has been extended in Ireland and Italy until early May. In Argentina, it is maintained until April 26, when Venezuela prolongs by 30 days the “state of alert” and the almost total containment. And Turkey, which also deplores a thousand dead, confined 31 cities throughout the weekend, plunging the megalopolis Istanbul into an unprecedented silence.
As some European countries prepare for the end of containment in the wake of China, the World Health Organization (WHO) has pointed out that lifting restrictions too quickly “could lead to a lethal resurgence” of the pandemic.
WHO has also warned Belarus that the epidemic is experiencing a “rapid increase” in the number of cases on its territory. The country of 9.5 million inhabitants is one of the few in Europe to have not ordered confinement.
As for the African continent, where nearly 13,000 cases of COVID-19 and 700 deaths have been recorded according to official figures, “the virus is spreading beyond the big cities,” worried the head of the WHO for the continent, Doctor Matshidiso Moeti, saying that she feared “a new front.”
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Wearing a mask extends
Niger authorities have made it mandatory to wear a mask in the capital, Niamey. In contrast, the government has extended the city’s isolation from the rest of the country as well as the curfew (from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and emergency state. Wearing a mask is compulsory in Benin, Morocco, or Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire.
Bulgarians will also have to cover their noses and mouths on Sunday, according to a decree published on Saturday, the government fearing an increase in COVID-19 infections during the Easter holidays.
Financial aid
To “prevent a second fatal wave from reaching the United Kingdom,” the British government has announced that it will give an additional 200 million pounds (227.6 million euros) to developing countries.
This aid will be donated to various British or international organizations, said the ministry for international development in its press release: 130 million pounds (148 million euros) will thus go to the UN, including 65 million to WHO and 50 million. To the International Red Cross. This brings the British contribution to the global fight against the Coronavirus to 744 million pounds (847 million euros), the country has already contributed, among other things, 250 million pounds (285 million euros) to CEPI, the body responsible for developing a vaccine against COVID-19.
In Canada
In Canada, the House of Commons has adopted a wage subsidy program, touted as the country’s most significant economic measure since the Second World War, to help businesses and their employees weather the coronavirus crisis. The amount of this program is estimated at 73 billion dollars (47 billion euros).
