French health authorities reported 292 new deaths from the coronavirus on Sunday, up 13% on the previous day and taking the total to 2,606 since March 1, as the government raced to relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospitals in the east.

The number of known cases of coronavirus infection rose to 40,174 on Sunday from 37,575 a day earlier, France’s director general of health Jérôme Salomon told a press conference on Sunday.

Among the nearly 19,000 patients now hospitalised, 4,632 are in intensive care, Salomon said.

The toll over the past 24 hours was below the 319 deaths reported on Saturday, but the figures include only deaths reported in hospitals, and not at retirement homes or assisted-living facilities.

Authorities say they will be able to compile data on deaths in retirement homes from next week, which is likely to result in a big increase in registered fatalities.

France has been under virtual lockdown since March 17 and Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said on Friday that the unprecedented peacetime restrictions on public life would remain in place until at least April 15.

Public gatherings are banned, schools and universities are closed and all non-essential businesses have shut down, with people allowed out of their homes only to buy groceries, carry out essential work, exercise or seek medical care.

France’s Health Minister Olivier Véran announced on Saturday that the government has ordered more than a billion face masks – the overwhelming majority of them sourced from China – as the government scrambles to build up its supplies.

Véran noted that France has been using 40 million face masks weekly as it battles the pandemic and currently has three weeks worth of supplies.

Doctors, nursing home carers, the police and other frontline staff have decried a shortage of masks.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)

The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has surged by 889 to top 10,000, the Civil Protection Agency said on Saturday, the second highest daily tally since the epidemic emerged on February 21.

The toll in Italy, which has suffered more deaths than any other country, now stands at 10,023. An additional 5,974 infections brought to 92,472 the number of people who have officially tested positive for COVID-19 in Italy since the crisis began last month.

The first Western country to introduce severe restrictions on movement after uncovering the outbreak five weeks ago, Italy has since increasingly tightened them. It has banned all non-essential activities until April 3.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has urged the European Union to launch a “recovery bond” to help fund the response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying failure to tackle the emergency would be a “tragic mistake” for the bloc.

In an interview with Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore on Saturday, Conte said a common debt instrument was needed to spearhead a European recovery and reinvestment plan to support the economy of the whole area.

Education Minister Lucia Azzolina has already said the closure of schools and universities, which began on March 5, would have to be extended past April 3.

That’s while Italy’s minister for the country’s economically disadvantaged southern regions expressed concerns about potential social tensions and civil unrest in poorer areas if, as expected, the epidemic moves south.

“I am afraid that the worries that are affecting large sections of the population over health, income and the future, with the continuation of the crisis, will turn into anger and hatred,” Minister Giuseppe Provenzano told La Repubblica newspaper on Saturday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced on Friday a two-week extension of a nationwide lockdown in an effort to stem a surge in coronavirus cases across France.

The French PM said in a speech that the government had decided to extend the country’s coronavirus lockdown, until April 15.

“After these first 10 days of confinement, it is clear that we are just at the beginning of this epidemic wave. It has submerged eastern France and now it is arriving in the Paris region and northern France,” said Philippe.

For this reason, he said, the confinement period would be extended by two weeks from Tuesday next week, and added that the same rules would apply.

Philippe said that this period would only be extended again if the health situation required it.

The prime minister has warned that the number of cases is expected to rise in the Paris region and northern France, after heavily hitting eastern France.

France has reported nearly 1,700 deaths of people with the virus in hospitals, the fifth-highest number of any country worldwide. The nation’s numbers have continued to mount since the confinement began on March 17.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AFP)

French health authorities reported 365 new deaths from coronavirus on Thursday, taking the total to 1,696.

The rise in the number of deaths represents a daily rise of 27 percent, a marked increase from the previous day with France now in its second week of lockdown.

This daily government tally only accounts for those dying in hospital, but authorities said they would soon be able to compile data on deaths in retirement homes, which is likely to result in a big increase in registered fatalities.

During a press conference, health agency director Jérôme Salomon added that the number of cases had risen to 29,155, a rise of 16 percent in 24 hours.

Salomon said 3,375 people were in a serious condition needing life support, up 19 percent compared to Wednesday and meaning that close to half of France’s 8,000 beds equipped with ventilation gear are occupied.

French economy operating at 65 percent

The rise in coronavirus tolls came as the official INSEE statistical agency said French economic activity and household spending are running at about 65 percent of normal levels due to the coronavirus outbreak.

INSEE gave the first picture of the impact of the nationwide lockdown as it published its monthly business confidence index, which saw its biggest single drop since records began in 1980.

The index fell to 95 points from 105 points in February with even steeper declines seen in the services and retail sectors, INSEE said.

The French government has prepared a €45 billion package – 2 percent of GDP – of crisis measures made up mainly of deferred taxes and payroll charges for companies, and payments to companies who put workers on reduced schedules.

Additionally, the government is guaranteeing up to €300 billion euros – 15 percent of GDP – of corporate borrowing from commercial banks to keep credit flowing to the economy.

INSEE said it was too early to try to forecast how deep the downturn would be, but it estimated that each month of confinement would reduce economic activity by 12 percentage points on a quarterly basis and 3 percentage points on an annual basis.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

The French military will support public services strained by the coronavirus epidemic, President Emmanuel Macron has said, as the country’s death toll topped 1,300.

France like other nations has already imposed a nationwide ban on non-essential movement and closed schools and restaurants in a bid to stop the spread of the pandemic.

The military operation, named “Resilience”, will focus on “aiding and supporting the population, as well as helping public services face the epidemic in mainland France and overseas”, Macron said on Wednesday.

“Unity and courage will allow us to overcome this, we are only at the beginning, but we will hold out,” Macron added, declaring that France was “at war”.

The comments came after the president visited a military field hospital set up by the army in the eastern Mulhouse region which has been badly hit by the coronavirus.

“The whole nation has been mobilised” in the fight against the disease, said a masked Macron, who also promised more investment for hospitals.

Officials said on Wednesday Paris will also cut metro and train services to a minimum in the capital and its suburbs and close two of its airports as the country expands the lockdown measures.

Operators said the goal was to keep just enough trains running for health workers and others who need to get to work during the coronavirus crisis.

Police are carrying out checks at stations to prevent unnecessary travel, not least by people hoping to escape confinement in large cities.

Also Wednesday, Paris airports operator ADP said it would temporarily shut Orly airport, the main domestic hub, to commercial flights because of the “significant and sudden” drop-off in passenger traffic because of coronavirus travel restrictions.

“Yesterday passenger traffic at Orly was down 92 percent and down 89 percent at Charles de Gaulle,” the main Paris international hub, ADP’s managing director Edward Arkwright told journalists.

The group had already shut several terminals at both airports as airlines slashed flights.

France has reported 1,331 official coronavirus deaths since the first case was reported in January. More than 11,500 people have tested positive for the virus.

The government will announce over the coming days for how long the country’s lockdown measures would continue, spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said.

Source:  AFP

French health authorities reported 231 new deaths from coronavirus on Wednesday, taking the total to 1,331.

The rise in the number of deaths from coronavirus represents a daily increase in France of 21%, a slight slowing from the previous two days with the country now in its second week of lockdown.

This daily government tally only accounts for those dying in hospital but authorities said they would soon be able to compile data on deaths in retirement homes, which is likely to result in a big increase in registered fatalities.

During a press conference, health agency director Jerome Salomon added that the number of cases had risen to 25,233, a rise of about 13% in 24 hours.

Salomon said 2,827 people were in a serious condition, needing life support, up 12% compared to Tuesday and meaning that more than one third of France’s 8,000 beds equipped with ventilation gear are occupied.

(REUTERS)

The COVID 19 outbreak enters its fifth week in Italy amid fears that the pandemic will last longer than expected. The head of civil protection, Angelo Borrelli, announced on Friday that the peak in the infection spread is still two weeks away with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte hinting at the possibility of extending the draconian lockdown measures nationwide well beyond April 3.

This is while over 40,000 people have contracted the virus and over 3,400 have died of it so far in Italy, surpassing the number of coronavirus deaths in China. Disappointment is growing in the country over a perceived lack of support from Europe. Earlier in March, when Rome asked for urgent supplies of medical equipment under a special European crisis mechanism, not a single EU country responded.

The healthcare situation is worsening particularly in the Lombardy region, the heart of the Italian coronavirus outbreak. Italy’s already-strained national health system is struggling with the lack of space, resources and staff after hospitals were deluged by coronavirus patients over the past weeks. Beds in intensive care departments are running out in the worst-hit regions and shortage of doctors has forced the government to hire retired doctors.

Meanwhile, a third team of 300 Chinese medical experts and nurses with tons of medical supplies landed in Milan on Friday. Some 21 other medical staff had already landed in Rome in the past days with 30 pulmonary ventilators, 200,000 face masks and nine tons of other supplies to help the Italian effort against the coronavirus.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio has praised China for its support saying that Rome-Beijing solidarity has deepened amid the coronavirus crisis. Also 65 doctors and nurses from Cuba are slated to arrive in Lombardy on Saturday.

Source: Presstv

Europe’s cherished Schengen network of open internal borders is on the brink of collapse as more and more countries shut their doors in a frantic effort to stave off the coronavirus pandemic, even as experts warn such tactics will delay its spread – but not halt it.

At his daily briefing on the coronavirus emergency on Friday, Luca Zaia, the governor of Italy’s Veneto region, one of Europe’s worst-hit, told reporters that Europe’s borderless zone was “disappearing as we speak”.

“Schengen no longer exists, it will be remembered only in the history books,” Zaia said, pointing to the long lines of traffic stuck at Italy’s northeastern border, where Austrian officials have reintroduced stringent controls.

With Italy reporting the most virus cases and deaths anywhere in the world except China, the pandemic is increasingly wearing on the EU’s cherished core principle, which envisions a border-free Europe where citizens can freely live, work and travel.

Austria became the first country to impose drastic curbs on travel from Italy on Wednesday, urgently reinstalling border checkpoints in the exact spots where they had been dismantled back in 1997 when the country joined the Schengen Area.

All travellers seeking to cross the Brennero border from Italy are now required to present health certificates proving they have not contracted the COVID-19 virus – a measure that has slowed traffic on the busy Alpine crossing to a near standstill.

Since then, Slovenia and Switzerland, which also border Italy, have imposed similar curbs. But several other EU nations – including Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Cyprus – have announced restrictions that go far beyond travellers from Italy.

“Most of the cases that have been propagating the coronavirus epidemic in Poland are imported cases,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters as he announced the closure of his country’s borders with all its neighbours starting at midnight on Saturday.

“We don’t want the coronavirus to head our way in droves.”

‘Uncharted territory’

The successive border closures came as the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Friday that Europe had become the pandemic’s current “epicenter” after reporting more cases and deaths than the rest of world combined, excluding China.

More than 22,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed across Europe, and nearly 1,500 people with the virus have died on the continent – most of them in Italy.

While the virus is spreading across the continent, the rushed actions taken by individual states are highlighting the lack of a coordinated approach to fighting the coronavirus – not least among the European Union’s 27 member states.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, has recommended coordinated health screenings at the borders as a way to address infections, rather than border closures.

“We’ve seen travel bans and controls being put in place in a number of member states,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters on Friday. “Certain controls may be justified, but general travel bans are not seen as being the most effective by the World Health Organization. Moreover, they have a strong social and economic impact. They disrupt people’s lives and business across the borders.”

To avoid a patchwork of national policies that are ineffective and cause economic harm, “any measure that is taken must be proportionate” and coordinated with Brussels, she said, suggesting that preliminary checks for signs of infection could be done at the Schengen Area’s borders, both internal and external.

“Member states, especially neighbouring ones, need to work very closely together,” Von der Leyen said. “In this way, and it’s the only way, we can make sure that our citizens receive the healthcare that they need immediately, wherever they are.”

But Von der Leyen’s commission, along with other EU institutions, has a very limited role to play in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. It polices the Schengen Area’s rules, but individual countries are responsible for their own health and public safety policies.

In a sign of the EU’s limited power, the Danish government also announced late Friday that it was closing all of its borders – land, sea and air – to travellers. Denmark consulted with neighbouring countries prior to the announcement but not with EU officials.

“We are in uncharted territory,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a news conference as he announced the travel ban. “I know that the overall list of measures is very extreme and will be seen as very extreme, but I am convinced that it’s worth it.”

‘Foreign disease’

In many ways, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated divisions that first came to the fore in 2015, when eastern and central European states closed their borders to migrants and thwarted EU efforts to implement migrant quotas across the bloc.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose country has also banned travel from Italy, has made an explicit link between the two crises.

“We are fighting a two-front war: one front is called migration, and the other one belongs to the coronavirus – there is a logical connection between the two, as both spread with movement,” Orban told Hungarian media on Friday.

“Our experience is that foreigners brought in the disease, and that it is spreading among foreigners,” he added, in remarks that mirrored US President Donald Trump’s description of the coronavirus as a “foreign disease”.

Trump’s decision on Wednesday to slap a 30-day travel ban on people coming from the Schengen Area has stunned and angered EU officials, who were not consulted prior to the move.

“Instead of tending to the problems of his country, and to a virus that knows no borders, he thinks that he can fight it like people that have a different citizenship than American,” said German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.

Though it has stepped up monitoring travellers for signs of infection, Germany has so far refused to close its borders. Spain and Italy have also opted to keep borders open, even as they place their own populations under lockdown.

“This virus cares not for borders, be they internal or external,” said Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday as he said his country planned to declare a nationwide state of emergency.

‘Turn off the source’

French President Emmanuel Macron has also been critical of EU members that have unilaterally closed their borders, calling such moves counter-productive and pleading instead for coordination across the bloc. He has stressed the importance of scientific evidence, rather than ideology or political expediency, in guiding the world’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.

But just as governments are divided over how to tackle the novel virus, so is the scientific community.

In justifying Trump’s travel ban, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top official on infectious diseases at the US National Institute of Health, noted that 70 percent of new infections could be traced to Europe.

“It was pretty compelling that we needed to turn off the source from that region,” he told a congressional panel on Thursday.

Internal blockades have proved their effectiveness in China, where the virus first originated, said Sterghios Moschos, a virologist at Northumbria University in the UK. Appearing on the FRANCE 24 Debate show, Moschos noted that the blockade of Hubei province “stopped in its tracks the transmission intensity”, thereby sparing other parts of the country.

Other medical experts are doubtful that the Chinese model would prove useful now that the disease has spread across the globe and is being passed through so-called community transmission – among people who haven’t travelled overseas.

Dr. Bruce Aylward, who led a World Health Organization team in China as the COVID-19 disease was surging last month, said countries might gain in the short term by limiting travel, but that overall “it doesn’t help to restrict movement”.

Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson and medical doctor currently involved in the virus response, echoed the concerns about the false comfort of closing borders as a delaying tactic.

“You divert a lot of resources when you are focused on closing borders, rather than focusing on protecting your health workers, preparing your health systems and enhancing your disease surveillance,” she told The Intercept.

Even Britain, which was initially exempt from Trump’s travel ban, has expressed scepticism about its effectiveness.

“With regard to flight bans, we are always guided by the science as we make our decisions here,” Finance Minister Rishi Sunak told BBC radio on Friday.

He added: “The advice we are getting is that there isn’t evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans are going to have a material effect on the spread of the infection.”

Source: France 24

Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday blamed foreigners and migration for the spread of coronavirus in Hungary, as the authorities announced that two infected Iranians were to be expelled.

Orban, asked during a radio interview why Hungary had closed its universities but not schools in response to the virus outbreak, said it was because “there are lots of foreigners there”.

“Our experience is that primarily foreigners brought in the disease, and that it is spreading among foreigners,” he said.

So far, Hungary has confirmed 19 cases of infections, nine of them Iranians (mostly university scholarship-holders), one British national, and the rest Hungarians.

“It’s no coincidence that the virus first showed up among Iranians,” said Orban.

“We cannot separate the tens of thousands of foreign students from the Hungarian students, that’s why we thought it best to stop all visits to those institutions,” he said.

Interior ministry announces two expulsions

The interior ministry announced Friday that two Iranian students diagnosed with the virus would be expelled because they had left a hospital quarantine hall without permission and with no protective clothing.

They had been aggressive towards the medical staff who placed them in isolation, the statement added. The pair would be expelled as soon as their health permitted and banned from staying in Hungary for three years.

In Hungarian-language messages posted on its Facebook page the government has warned Iranians of detention and deportation if they don’t cooperate with disease control authorities.

Last week after the first infections were confirmed — both Iranian students — Budapest suspended the issuing of visas to Iranian citizens.

Earlier in March Hungary barred the doors indefinitely to its border camps for asylum-seekers as it said refugees and migrants arriving there may have been in virus hotspot Iran.

Government officials and pro-Orban media have also drawn a link between the virus outbreak and migration.

“We are fighting a two-front war, one front is called migration, and the other one belongs to the coronavirus, there is a logical connection between the two, as both spread with movement,” Orban said Friday.

(AFP)