Global fears of second wave grow
FROM PAGE 12
prepare to reopen borders at the beginning of the summer holiday season after an encouraging drop in contagion.
Of the 57 new cases in China, the highest daily figure since April, 36 were domestic infections in Beijing, where a large wholesale food market at the centre of the outbreak has been closed and nearby housing estates put under lockdown.
“People are scared,” a fruit and vegetable trader at another local market in central Beijing told AFP.
“The meat sellers have had to close. This disease is really scary,” said the man surnamed Sun, adding there were fewer customers than normal.
More than 430,000 people worldwide have died from the respiratory illness, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have already been upended as the pandemic ravages the global economy.
The total number of confirmed cases has doubled to 7.8 million in slightly over a month and the disease is now spreading most rapidly in Latin America, where it is threatening healthcare systems and sparking political turmoil.
Brazil now has the second-highest number of virus deaths after the United States, surpassing Britain’s toll, and the Chilean health minister resigned on Saturday amid a furore over the country’s true number of fatalities.
India reported a record single-day jump in cases yesterday, adding nearly 12,000 confirmed infections and taking the total to more than 320,000, according to health ministry data.
Pakistan recorded its highest number of cases in a single day with 6,825 new patients, taking the tally to 1,39,230, while more than 80 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said yesterday.
Former Pakistani prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has tested positive for the coronavirus, his son confirmed on Saturday.
There is still no treatment for Covid-19, but pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca said it has agreed to supply an alliance of European countries with up to 400 million doses of a possible vaccine.
German government sources told AFP a vaccine could be developed by the end of the year.
EUROPE REOPENS
Many European nations are further lifting painful lockdowns that have saved lives and forced caseloads down, but have also caused their economies to shrink and caused misery for millions.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis travelled to picturesque Santorini island on Saturday to open his country’s tourism season.
After the European Commission urged a relaxation of restrictions, a number of nations are preparing to reopen borders today -- while some like Poland have done so already, with people from other European Union countries allowed to visit.
Germany said it would end land border checks today, and France said it would gradually reopen its borders to non-Schengen countries from July.
In Iran, daily virus death toll has exceeded 100, for the first time in two months. In televised remarks, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari announced 107 Covid-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, raising the overall toll to 8,837.
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is emerging from the crisis with minimal losses, having handled it better than the United States where party political interests got in the way.
In another joyful return to semi-normality, football superstar Lionel Messi took to the pitch again in Spain as Barcelona resumed their La Liga title challenge and thumped Real Mallorca 4-0 in an empty stadium.
The World Health Organization said this week the pandemic is accelerating in Africa. Botswana’s capital Gaborone was locked down after new cases were detected.
And in the US, which has seen the most Covid-19 deaths with over 115,000, more than a dozen states -- including populous Texas and Florida -- reported their highest-ever daily case totals in recent days.
Australia’s two largest states will further ease public coronavirus restrictions at libraries, community centres and nightclubs, officials said yesterday, despite recording increases in new infections.
New South Wales (NSW), the most populous state, said that from July 1, a 50 person limit on indoor venues such as restaurants and churches would be scrapped, so long as the venues observed a one person per four square metre rule.
Nightclubs and music festivals would also be allowed to operate from August if new cases remain low, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
The state on Saturday reported the first locally transmitted Covid-19 case in weeks, and state officials yesterday said there had been nine new infections since late Friday.
In neighbouring Victoria, where pubs and other venues are currently limited to 20 people, indoor businesses will be allowed to have up to 50 seated patrons from June 22, said state premier Daniel Andrews.