Italy: PM
warns of worst crisis since WW2 as coronavirus deaths leap by almost 800
Giuseppe
Conte shuts down all non-essential factories and businesses as lockdowns spread
across the world, including the US and India
Martin
Farrer and agencies
Sun 22 Mar
2020 06.36 GMTLast modified on Sun 22 Mar 2020 09.15 GMT
Italy has
shut all non-essential factories as the country takes increasingly drastic
measures to halt the epidemic that claimed another 793 lives on Saturday to
take the national death toll to 4,825.
In a
dramatic late-night television address on Saturday, Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s
prime minister, warned the nation was facing its gravest crisis since the
second world war and said all non-essential businesses must close until 3
April.
“The decision taken by the government is to
close down all productive activity throughout the territory that is not
strictly necessary, crucial, indispensable, to guarantee us essential goods and
services,” Conte said
Groceries
and pharmacies would remain open and although he did not specify and what
“indispensable” companies were, he was expected to release a decree on Sunday
explaining his plans.
“We will
slow down the country’s productive engine, but we will not stop it,” Conte
said.
The Russian
military will start sending medical help to Italy from Sunday in order to help
it battle the coronavirus, Moscow’s defence ministry said in a statement.
President
Vladimir Putin spoke to Conte on Saturday, the Kremlin said, saying the Russian
leader had offered his support and help in the form of mobile disinfection
vehicles and specialists to help the worst hit Italian regions.
Italy now
accounts for more than a third of the world’s total of around 13,000 deaths. It
has the second-highest number of cases with 53,578 out of the global total of
more than 307,000.
China,
which recorded its first new domestic case for four days, still has the most
cases with 81,346, according to Johns Hopkins University but the United States
has the third-highest number of cases.
The US has
85 million people subject to stay-at-home orders after New Jersey on Saturday
joined New York, Connecticut, Illinois and California in ordering people to
stay inside. The US saw cases jump sharply again on Saturday and it now has a
total of 26,747 and 340 deaths.
As concerns
mount about the impact of the outbreak on the world’s number one economy,
Congressional leaders and White House officials were in talks about launching a
$1tn stimulus package.
“They’re
all negotiating and everybody’s working hard and they want to get to a solution
that’s the right solution, I think we’re very close,” said Donald Trump, who
continued to strike a confident tone about the nation’s ability to defeat the
pandemic soon.
“We are
going to be celebrating a great victory in the not too distant future,” he
said, although he also continued to lash out at what he described as
“inaccurate” reporting of his government’s handling of the crisis.
Italian
health officials looked stony-faced as they read out the latest bad news in a
daily update. National health institute (ISS) chief Silvio Brusaferro urged the
elderly to stay indoors at all times. The average age of Italy’s victims was
78.5.
“If you do
not follow all the (government) measures, you make everything more difficult,”
Italy’s top medical expert said. “If you do, we can make this outbreak slow
down.”
But the
Italian government appears intent on making more or less everyone stay indoors
as much as possible at any cost.
Police
squads in Rome were checking documents and fining those outside without a valid
excuse.
Those who
were out shopping were forced to wait in line at the entrance to make sure the
store was filled with only a handful of people at a time. Joggers were asked to
limit their runs to laps around the block.
People out
for a walk were fined if they broke the rules and wandered into a park or
stopped to take pictures of historic scenes of a city without any people.
Conte’s government
is betting that this approach will work but Italy is setting some unenviable
records, with Saturday’s jump in infections of 6,557 just the latest one and
beating the one set the day before.
Italy’s
first weeks of the crisis were marked by periodic record death tolls that would
come twice or three times a week. The country has been setting them every day
since Wednesday and the jumps are getting exponentially bigger.
There was
alarm in the UK where military planners are being drafted in to coordinate food
supplies and when people flocked to the seaside town of Skegness in violation
of the nationwide orders to stay at home.
The
outbreak was gathering strength in every other region of the world.
In Latin
America, Mexican health authorities said on Saturday that there were 251
confirmed coronavirus cases in the country, 48 more cases than a day earlier.
Colombia
has recorded its first death, a taxi driver who carried two Italians in his cab
earlier this month before becoming ill. In Argentina, the government is
considering declaring a “state of siege”, the security minister said, in order
to enforce its nationwide lockdown.
In Asia
Pacific the situation also appeared to worsen outside China.
In India,
the government launched a 14-hour curfew running from 7am to 9pm local time
(01.30 to 15.30GMT) in an effort to limit the spread of the virus which has now
infected 315 people. India has a population of almost 1.4 billion.
Another 188
cases were recorded in Thailand on Sunday, its largest daily increase, taking
the total to 599 cases, a senior health official said. “Most of the new cases
were found in Bangkok and were among young people who continue to have social
activities, which can lead to more infections,” a helth official said, urging
the public to stay home.
Singapore
has banned the entry and transit of visitors.
Australians
have been told not to travel anywhere in the country unless it is essential.
The country saw its biggest leap in cases so far partly due to 18 cases on a
cruise ship in Sydney. Scott Morrison, the prime minister, said even more
draconian measures were on their way such as localised suburban lockdowns. He
added that the scenes of hundreds of people at Bondi beach on Friday were “not
OK”. The famous Sydney beach has now been closed.
The Pacific
nations have recorded their first Covid-19 death after a 68-year-old woman died
in Guam.
South Korea
reported 98 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing national infections to
8,897, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.The daily
tally showed a continued downward trend in new cases, despite a slight jump on
Saturday. The Philippines’ health ministry has confirmed 73 new cases, bringing
the country’s total to 380.
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