India declares
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“The measures we took two weeks ago are starting to have an effect,” civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told the daily La Repubblica before Tuesday’s toll came out.
He said more data over the next few days will help show “if the growth curve is really flattening.”
There were some positive signs of China too, where the virus first emerged in December.
Residents of Hubei province -- the initial epicentre of the disease -- who are deemed healthy will now be allowed to travel from midnight under moves to lift restrictions on about 50 million people.
The relaxation of rules will not apply to the hardest-hit city of Wuhan until April 8, but China may prove to have turned a corner.
In Geneva, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said infections in the United States had greatly increased.
Over the previous 24 hours, 85 percent of new cases were in Europe and the United States, and of those, 40 percent were in the United States.
Six hundred people have died from the new coronavirus in the United States, while the number of confirmed cases now stands at 49,768, a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed yesterday.
Asked whether the United States could become the new epicentre, Harris said: “We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the US. So it does have that potential.”
Modi, in a national television address, declared the locdown warning people to obey government order.
“From 12 midnight today (1830 GMT Tuesday), the entire country will be in lockdown, total lockdown .To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family... every street, every neighbourhood is being put under lockdown,” he said to the nation.
India has lagged behind other nations in the number of COVID-19 cases, but there has been a sharp increase in recent days to 519 infections, including 10 deaths, according to the government.
Modi warned that Indians had to observe the lockdown if they wanted to stop the spread of the deadly virus.
“This is a curfew... We will have to pay economic cost of this, but to save every family member, this is the responsibility of everyone -- the biggest priority,” the prime minister added.
“If these 21 days are not managed, the country and your family will go back 21 years... I am not saying this as your prime minister, I am saying it as your fellow citizen, family member.”
Modi spoke as the epidemic continued to ravage the global economy and cut a swathe through the world’s sporting, cultural and social agenda, forcing the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to be pushed back to next year.
It was the first time in the Olympics’ 124-year history that they had been postponed, though they were cancelled outright three times during the two 20th-century world wars.
Of the top 10 countries by case numbers, Italy has reported the highest fatality rate, at around 10%, which at least partly reflects its older population. The fatality rate globally - the ratio of deaths to confirmed infections - is around 4.3%, though national figures can vary widely according to how much testing is done.
The British government, which has faced accusations of dithering, on Monday ordered a three-week shutdown of “non-essential” shops and services and banned gatherings of more than two people in unprecedented peacetime measures.
“Unless you stay at home, then the people you love most may die,” senior minister Michael Gove said.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had warned Monday the pandemic was clearly accelerating, with the pace of infections much higher than when the outbreak first emerged in China in December.
The financial impact of economies grinding to a halt continued to unnerve policymakers, who have opened the spigots and flooded the markets with yet more cash to keep the wheels turning.
On Tuesday, G7 finance ministers and central bank chiefs vowed to “do whatever is necessary to restore confidence and economic growth and to protect jobs, businesses, and the resilience of the financial system”.
In the United States, the Federal Reserve has unveiled an unprecedented bond-buying programme, in a move not seen since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.
Europe has taken similar measures -- and finance ministers were meeting yesterday to coordinate a bigger response -- but economists say the lockdowns have already damaged business.
A closely-followed PMI survey by analysts IHS Market showed a collapse in economic activity in the eurozone “far exceeding that seen even at the height of the global financial crisis”.
But despite the grim data in Europe, world stock markets rallied strongly yesterday on the Federal Reserve moves.