The United States on Friday became the first country to record more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in one day, with 2,108 fatalities in the past 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.

The US has now recorded over 18,680 deaths and is closing in on the toll of 18,850 dead in Italy, which has seen the most fatalities so far in the global pandemic.

America is also approaching half a million confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 501,000 as of Saturday morning an increase of 35,098 in the past 24 hours.

Globally, there have been nearly 1.7 million confirmed cases, with the death toll topping 100,000 on Friday.

New York state, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, along with the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut, were recording some of the worst outbreaks in the country, even as public health authorities expressed optimism that the pace of infections appeared to be slowing.

As of Saturday, the New York City metropolitan area had 5,820 coronavirus deaths, counting for more than half the nation’s fatalities.

The US is on track to overtake Italy as the country with the highest number of dead, though the true figures on infections and lives lost around the world are believed be much higher because of limited testing, government cover-ups and different counting practices.

With many Americans celebrating the Easter holiday on Sunday, the top US infectious disease expert warned that it is too early to relax restrictions on Americans.

“Now is no time to back off,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

The social distancing guidelines have taken a toll on the U.S. economy. Some economists are forecasting job losses of up to 20 million in April, raising questions about how long business closures and travel restrictions can be sustained.

(Source: Agencies)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council on Thursday to display unity as it met to discuss what he called the “fight of a generation” — the global coronavirus pandemic.

“A signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time,” Guterres told the divided body holding its first meeting about the crisis.

The meeting of the 15-member Security Council is being held behind closed doors by videoconference but the UN released a copy of the secretary general’s remarks. 

“The engagement of the Security Council will be critical to mitigate the peace and security implications of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Guterres said.

“To prevail against the pandemic today, we will need to work together,” he said. “That means heightened solidarity.

“This is the fight of a generation — and the raison d’être of the United Nations itself,” he said.

Security Council members gathered after weeks of disagreement — especially between the United States and China, where the coronavirus outbreak began in December.

Led by Germany, the meeting was requested last week by nine of the council’s 10 non-permanent members who were fed up with the body’s inaction over the unprecedented global crisis.

Though the council meeting was closed-door, several ambassadors taking part released extracts of their remarks on Twitter or to reporters.

While Germany described the pandemic as an “international peace and security issue,” several other countries, notably Russia, China and South Africa, said health matters were not part of the Security Council’s brief.

France, meanwhile, confirmed that it would provide 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to fight the virus in Africa.

Non-permanent member Estonia, for its part, said holding the Security Council meeting was “better late than never,” a jab at those seen as delaying the talks.

‘Missing in action’

Ahead of the meeting, the United States and China had been arguing over the origins of the virus, which President Donald Trump has referred to as the “Chinese virus.”

There were two competing draft resolutions up for debate.

One, spearheaded by Tunisia on behalf of the 10 non-permanent members and obtained by AFP, calls for “an urgent, coordinated and united international action to curb the impact of COVID-19.”

It calls for the Security Council to “monitor the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international peace and security and asks the Secretary General to brief the Council on such developments when appropriate.”

It also seeks an “immediate global ceasefire to allow for adequate humanitarian response” to the pandemic.

That draft resolution has been in development since March 30 and has only been discussed by the 10 non-permanent members.

The second text, proposed by France, focuses on Guterres’s call last month to cease all hostilities around the world as part of a “humanitarian pause” to fight the pandemic.

That one has only had input from the five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — which diplomats from non-permanent countries told AFP has been “very frustrating.”

France has argued that the so-called P5 need to smooth out their differences before any wider negotiations with the council.

But efforts to convene a meeting of the five have been stymied by the hospitalization of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has the COVID-19 illness, and Chinese reticence to participate without first setting a clear agenda.

While Gutteres has been outspoken about the crisis and the 193 members of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling for “cooperation,” an ambassador to the UN described the Security Council as “missing in action.”

In the Security Council, at least nine votes out of 15 are necessary to adopt a resolution, without a veto by one of the five permanent members.

Source: AFP

Confirmed coronavirus cases across the globe now number at 1,347,803, and a total of 74,807 people have lost their lives as a result of complications caused by the virus, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. More than 277,400 people have recovered.

The United States leads all the 213 countries and territories affected by the highly contagious virus across the world with 368,196 confirmed infections. Italy remains the country with the highest death toll, which now stands at 16,523. And China — where the virus first emerged late last year — has reported no deaths from the virus for the first time since it began releasing daily data in January.

Source: Presstv

A tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the new coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the U.S. or a tiger anywhere, federal officials and the zoo said Sunday.

The 4-year-old Malayan tiger named Nadia – and six other tigers and lions that have also fallen ill – are believed to have been infected by a zoo employee who wasn’t yet showing symptoms, the zoo said. The first animal started showing symptoms March 27, and all are doing well and expected to recover, said the zoo, which has been closed to the public since March 16 amid the surging coronavirus outbreak in New York.

The test result stunned zoo officials: “I couldn’t believe it,” director Jim Breheny said. But he hopes the finding can contribute to the global fight against the virus that causes COVID-19.

“Any kind of knowledge that we get on how it’s transmitted, how different species react to it, that knowledge somehow is going to provide a greater base resource for people,” he said in an interview.

The finding raises new questions about transmission of the virus in animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which confirmed Nadia’s test result at its veterinary lab, said there are no known cases of the virus in U.S. pets or livestock.

“There doesn’t appear to be, at this time, any evidence that suggests that the animals can spread the virus to people or that they can be a source of the infection in the United States,” Dr. Jane Rooney, a veterinarian and a USDA official, said in an interview.

The USDA said Sunday it’s not recommending routine coronavirus testing of animals, in zoos or elsewhere, or of zoo employees. Still, Rooney said a small number of animals in the U.S. have been tested through the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories, and all those tests came back negative except Nadia’s.

The coronavirus outbreaks around the world are driven by person-to-person transmission, experts say.

There have been a handful of reports outside the U.S. of pet dogs or cats becoming infected after close contact with contagious people, including a Hong Kong dog that tested positive for a low level of the pathogen in February and early March. Hong Kong agriculture authorities concluded that pet dogs and cats couldn’t pass the virus to human beings but could test positive if exposed by their owners.

Some researchers have been trying to understand the susceptibility of different animal species to the virus, and to determine how it spreads among animals, according to the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.

The American Veterinary Medical Association and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  have been recommending that out of an abundance of caution, people ill with the coronavirus should limit contact with animals – advice that the veterinary group reiterated after learning of the tiger’s test result.

In general, the CDC also advises people to wash their hands after handling animals and do other things to keep pets and their homes clean.

Dry coughs, wheezing and loss of appetite

At the Bronx Zoo, Nadia, her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions developed dry coughs, and some of the cats exhibited some wheezing and loss of appetite, said Dr. Paul Calle, the zoo’s chief veterinarian.

The staff figured there could be a relatively routine explanation for the cats’ symptoms but tested Nadia for coronavirus out of “due diligence and an abundance of caution,” Breheny said. Only Nadia was tested because it takes anesthesia to get a sample from a big cat, and she had already been knocked out to be examined.

Calle said the test was different from the one used for people and was carried out by a veterinary school laboratory, not one that handles human samples.

“There is no competition for testing between these two very different situations,” he said.

The seven sickened cats live in two areas at the zoo, and the animals had contact with the same worker, who is doing OK, zoo officials said. They said there are no signs of illness in other big cats on the property.

Staffers who work with the cats will now wear infection-protection garb, as primate keepers have done for years because of the animals’ closer genetic ties to human beings, Breheny said.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as a fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and can be fatal.

Source: AP

Queen Elizabeth told the British people on Sunday that they would overcome the coronavirus outbreak if they stayed resolute in the face of lockdown and self-isolation, invoking the spirit of World War Two in an extremely rare broadcast to the nation.

In what was only the fifth televised address of her 68-year reign, Elizabeth called upon Britons to show the resolve of their forbears and demonstrate they were as strong as generations of the past.

“Together we are tackling this disease, and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it,” the 93-year-old monarch said in the address from her Windsor Castle home where she is staying with her husband Prince Philip, 98.

“While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed – and that success will belong to every one of us.”

The broadcast came hours after officials said the death toll in Britain from the virus had risen by 621 in the last 24 hours to 4,934 with high fatalities still expected in the next week.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is among those in self-isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, and the queen’s own son and heir Prince Charles, 71, has recovered after suffering mild symptoms of the virus.

Like many countries in Europe, Britain is in a state of virtual lockdown, with people told to stay at home unless it was essential to go out. Health minister Matt Hancock said even stricter rules might be imposed if the current rules to curb the spread of the virus were flouted.

World War Two Spirit

Elizabeth thanked those who were staying at home, thereby helping to spare others from suffering the grief already felt by some families.

She also paid tribute to health care staff for their selfless work and commended the “heart-warming” stories of people across the Commonwealth, of which she is head, and beyond for delivering food and medicines to those who needed them.

Sunday’s address was extremely rare as the queen usually only speaks to the nation in her annual televised Christmas Day message.

In order to ensure any risk to the elderly monarch herself was mitigated, it was filmed in a big room to ensure a safe distance between her and the cameraman, who wore gloves and a mask and was the only other person present.

Elizabeth said the situation reminded her of her first ever broadcast in 1940, when she and her late sister Margaret spoke from Windsor to children who had been evacuated from their homes to escape bombing raids by Nazi German aircraft.

She said that in the future people could take pride in how they too had dealt with such a challenge and disruption to their lives.

“Those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any,” she said. “That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future.”

She even invoked the words of the famous song “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn from World War Two which became a symbol of hope for Britons during the conflict.

“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return,” she said. “We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”

(REUTERS)

Queen Elizabeth will call on Britons to show the same resolve as their forebears and take on the challenge and disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak with good-humoured resolve when she makes an extremely rare address to rally the nation on Sunday.

In what will only be her fifth special televised message to the country during her 68 years on the throne, the queen will also thank healthcare workers on the front line and recognise the pain already suffered by some families.

“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say that the Britons of this generation were as strong as any,” the 93-year-old monarch will say, according to extracts released by Buckingham Palace.

“That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country.”

On Saturday, the government said the death toll of those who had tested positive for the virus rose by 708 in 24 hours to 4,313, with a 5-year-old among the dead, along with at least 40 who had no known previous health conditions.

Health officials have cautioned that high fatalities were expected for at least another week or two even if people complied with strict isolation measures.

Like many countries in Europe, Britain is in a state of virtual lockdown, with pubs, restaurants and nearly all shops closed, and social gatherings banned.

Britons have been told to stay at home unless it is absolutely essential to venture out to try to stop the spread of the epidemic. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is still in self-isolation, and a number of senior ministers have been among those who have tested positive for the virus.

‘As strong as any’

“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,” Elizabeth will say in what has been framed as a deeply personal message.

“A time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”

Sunday’s address, which will be aired at 1900 GMT, was recorded at Windsor Castle where the monarch is staying with her husband Prince Philip, 98.

In order to ensure any risk to the queen herself was mitigated, it was filmed in a big room to ensure a safe distance between her and the cameraman, who was wearing personal protective equipment and was the only other person present.

Earlier this week, Elizabeth’s son and heir Prince Charles, 71, came out of self-isolation himself after seven days following a positive test.

The queen usually only broadcasts to the nation with her annual televised Christmas Day message and this special address will be only the fifth she has made.

The last was in 2012 following celebrations to mark her 60th year as queen. That came a decade after the preceding broadcast which followed the death of her mother, the Queen Mother, in 2002 when she thanked Britons for their messages of condolence.

She also gave an address at the start of the Gulf War in 1991, and most famously, delivered a sombre live broadcast after the death of her daughter-in-law Princess Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 amid a national outpouring of grief and criticism of the royal family’s response.

(REUTERS)

A former American counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA has said that Washington’s “war on the novel coronavirus might well wind up being the most expensive conflict in American history.”

“The United States has been at war almost continuously since the founding of the nation in 1783,” Philip Giraldi said in a recent article published by the Strategic Culture Foundation.

“Some of the wars were undeclared like the centuries-long eradication of the native Americans, while others – the Mexican and Spanish-American wars – were glorified by including the names of the countries defeated by Washington’s war machine. America’s bloodiest war actually has multiple names, including the Civil War, the War Between the States, The War of the Rebellion and the War of Northern Aggression, allowing one to pick and choose reflecting one’s own political preferences,” he wrote.

“More recently wars in Korea and Vietnam were named in straightforward fashion, though current conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan do not really have names. In fact, it has become somewhat politically incorrect to name a war after an ethnic group or a country in the old fashion way. But this shortage of wars has been somewhat made up for by an increase in the number of metaphorical wars to include a war on drugs, a war on poverty and a war on terror. Now Americans are confronting what might some day be called the War on Coronavirus,” he added.

 He noted that Trump has already declared himself to be a “wartime president” and he is preparing to help the economy with a $2.2 trillion injection.

The analyst pointed out that most this money “will go to the salivating profiteers that are already lining up as well as to the greedy corporate constituencies who will do their best to use the cash to increase their value for potential shareholders.”

He observed that the $2.2 trillion amount is “considerably more than the Vietnam War cost in today’s dollars ($1 trillion) though it does not yet come close to the $5-7 trillion in borrowed dollars that the going-on-twenty-years engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq has cost.”

The United States recorded 1,321 deaths from the contagious coronavirus between Thursday and Friday, according to statistics site Worldometers, which is the highest single-day death toll recorded by any country in the world.

A total of 7,844 people have now died of COVID-19 in the United States and about 300,000 have been infected with the virus, Worldometers said.

New York was the worst-hit state in the US. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded with the US government for more help, as new statistics have confirmed that hundreds of thousands of people across the country have lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, public health specialists have warned that mass shutdowns of businesses and schools to enforce social distancing measures over the coronavirus outbreak will lead to thousands of deaths and suicides in the US that are unrelated to the disease itself.

Source: Presstv

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed on Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8.30pm on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on Mar 27.

The US has now recorded 5,926 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Globally, Italy still has the highest total death toll, with 13,915 dying of the disease there, followed by Spain at 10,003.

The US also recorded more than 30,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the same 24-hour period, bringing the total number of officially reported cases in the country to more than 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That is roughly a quarter of the more than a million cases reported globally.

New York City is at the epicenter of the American outbreak, recording more than 1,500 deaths and nearing 50,000 positive cases, according to figures released late Thursday by city health authorities.

More than 1.3 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the US, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday at a daily White House press conference on the virus.

“We are now conducting over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day,” President Donald Trump added at the same briefing, saying that was “more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and on a per capita basis”.

White House projections show the virus is expected to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the US.

(Source: AFP)

The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in a single day, the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed Thursday, the highest one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic began.

The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8:30pm Wednesday (0030 GMT) and the same time Thursday.

The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on March 27.

The US has now recorded around 6000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began.

Trump changes his position on masks

US President Donald Trump’s administration appeared to join local officials on Thursday in advising Americans to wear masks when venturing out during the still-exploding coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a White House briefing, Deborah Birx, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would issue guidelines in the coming days on the use of face coverings.

Birx however cautioned that Americans, who have been admonished to stay at home except for essential outings, should not develop a “false sense of security” that they are fully protected from the respiratory illness by wearing a mask.

Trump, answering questions from reporters at the same briefing, said only that “if people want to wear them, they can.”

Global cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday with more than 52,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally based on country by country data.

White House medical experts have forecast that between 100,000 to 240,000 people could be killed even if Americans follow the sweeping lock-down orders.

The Trump administration, CDC and public health officials have all wavered on the issue of face masks since the pandemic broke out, initially telling healthy people such measures were unnecessary or even counter-productive.

Lack of resources

In New York City, the center of the US outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to wear face coverings, citing studies showing that the virus can be transmitted by infected people who are showing no symptoms.

“What that means is when you put on that face covering you’re protecting everyone else,” de Blasio said. The Democratic mayor suggested New Yorkers use scarves or other home-made masks because medical-grade protective gear was in short supply.

An emergency stockpile of medical equipment maintained by the US government has nearly run out of protective garb for doctors and nurses.

In New York City, where at least 1,400 people have been killed by the virus, hospitals and morgues struggled to treat the desperately ill and bury the dead.

New York City funeral homes and cemetery directors described a surge in demand not seen in decades as cases surpassed 50,000 in the city.

Crematories extended their hours and burned bodies into the night, with corpses piling up so quickly that city officials were looking elsewhere in the state for temporary interment sites.

“We’ve been preparing for a worst-case scenario, which is in a lot of ways starting to materialise,” said Mike Lanotte, director of the New York State Funeral Directors Association.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)