Italy virus toll tops 4,000, New York joins California in lockdown

Country reeled from its worst single-day toll with more than 600 deaths, worldwide fatalities swept past 11,000

ROME: The grim toll of coronavirus deaths in Italy, the world's worst-hit nation, surged past 4,000 on Friday as New York and other US states joined California in ordering a lockdown to try to bring the pandemic under control.

While new infections were being detected around the globe, the World Health Organization said the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began in December, offered a glimmer of "hope for the rest of the world", with no fresh cases reported.

As Italy reeled from its worst single-day toll with more than 600 deaths, worldwide fatalities swept past 11,000, with the number of infected people topping 258,000, according to an AFP tally.



Governments and central banks continued meanwhile to throw huge sums of money into the economic battle, hoping that a deep global recession could somehow be dodged.

US President Donald Trump applauded decisions by the governors of New York and California to order residents to stay home but said he did not think a nationwide lockdown was needed.

"Those are really two hotbeds," Trump said.

"I don't think we'll ever find (a US-wide lockdown) necessary," he said, adding that the United States was "winning" the war against the virus.

Shortly after Trump spoke, the governor of Illinois ordered residents of the midwestern state to stay at home and the governor of Connecticut did the same.

The stay-at-home orders put the three most populous cities in the United States -- New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- under lockdown.

Britain, falling in line with its neighbours in the European Union, also announced tougher restrictions, telling pubs, restaurants and theatres to close and promising to help cover the wages of affected workers.

Italy reported its worst single day, adding another 627 fatalities and taking its reported total to 4,032 despite government efforts to stem the spread.

Hope

In encouraging news, Wuhan reported no new cases in 24 hours

"Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world that even the most severe situation can be turned around", said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Wuhan -- the Chinese metropolis where the COVID-19 pandemic began -- reported no new cases in 24 hours. PHOTO: AFP

Hours earlier, California, which has over 1,000 cases and 19 deaths, told its 40 million residents to stay at home.

New York state, which has reported over 7,000 cases and 39 deaths, followed suit on Friday morning, ordering its nearly 20 million residents to do the same from Sunday evening.

"We're all in quarantine now," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

Meanwhile a staffer in the office of US Vice President Mike Pence, the pointman for Washington's response to the coronavirus outbreak, tested positive for the illness

Across Europe, governments continued to rigorously enforce lockdown measures as the continent's most celebrated boulevards and squares remained silent and empty even as warmer spring weather arrived.



France, Italy, Spain and other European countries have told people to stay at home, threatening fines in some cases, and Bavaria became the first region in Germany to order a lockdown.

Idiots

France said more than 4,000 people were fined on the first day of its confinement and ministers described those breaking the rules as "idiots".

The strict measures follow the template set by China, as a lockdown imposed in Hubei province where the virus first emerged appeared to have paid off.

China's death count was steady at 3,248, according to an AFP tally.

Europe now accounts for more than half of the world's fatalities linked to COVID-19.

Accurate figures are difficult to come by, however, as many of those who die suffer from other illnesses and infection rates are uncertain because of a lack of testing in many countries.

The shadow of the virus is lengthening across Africa and the Middle East too.

Graphic showing largest number of daily cases of COVID-19 from March 13 to 19. PHOTO: AFP

Gabon confirmed sub-Saharan Africa's second known death, with reported cases across Africa standing at more than 900 and rising fast.

In Iran, both supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani promised the country would overcome the outbreak -- but still refused to join the rest of the world in imposing heavy restrictions.

In Latin America, Cuba and Bolivia both announced they were closing their borders.

The pandemic has sparked fears of a global recession, battering the world's stock markets and prompting governments to push huge spending plans to limit the damage.

The central banks of the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada and Switzerland joined forces on Friday in a new bid to keep money pumping through the world economy.



In the United States, senators began negotiations over a $1 trillion emergency stimulus package to help Americans ravaged by the virus outbreak.

A member of the Bolivarian National Guard checks a woman's temperature outside a market in Caracas, Venezuela on March 20, 2020. PHOTO: AFP

The US package -- coupled with a European Central Bank plan to buy 750 billion euros in bonds -- saw stock markets across Asia and Europe rebound in Friday trading, but Wall Street finished sharply lower.

The global sporting calendar, shredded by the pandemic, still has one major event coming up that has not yet been called off -- the Olympic Games, set to take place in Japan in the summer.