MADRID, March 31, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Tightened lockdowns across the planet
saw nearly half of humanity told to stay at home in a bid to stem the
spiralling coronavirus pandemic, as Spain recorded its deadliest day Tuesday
and the United States braced for the full impact of the disease.
The virus has claimed nearly 38,000 lives worldwide in a health crisis that
is rapidly reorganising political power, hammering the global economy and the
daily existence of some 3.6 billion people.
Spain, whose outbreak is the world’s second deadliest after Italy, broke
another national record of 849 deaths in one day Tuesday, dampening hopes it
could have passed the peak of the crisis that has debilitated the country for
weeks.
In battered Italy, flags flew at half-mast during a minute of silence to
honour the more than 11,500 people who have perished from the virus, and the
health workers still working through nightmarish conditions.
Although there are signs the spread of infections is slowing in Italy,
hundreds are still dying every day, leading authorities to extend a stringent
nationwide shutdown despite its crushing economic impact.
In Belgium a 12-year-old girl infected with COVID-19 was pronounced dead, a
rare case of a young person succumbing to the disease, and yet another grim
reminder of its reach.
– ‘We need help now’ –
Across the Atlantic, the United States was preparing for its darkest days
after the death toll topped 3,000 out of 163,000 known infections — the
highest case count for any country.
Scenes previously unimaginable in peacetime — such as a field hospital set
to open in Central Park — shook frightened New Yorkers hunkered down in an
eerily quiet city.
A US military medical ship with 1,000 beds also docked in Manhattan to
relieve pressure on the city’s overwhelmed health system.
The city’s food banks are seeing a surge of newcomers who have lost income
as the world’s financial capital shuts down.
“It is my first time,” Lina Alba, a 40-year-old single mother of five, said
at a food distribution centre run by the New York charity City Harvest.
She worked as a maid in a Manhattan hotel until it closed two weeks ago.
“We need the help now. This is crazy. So we don’t know what’s gonna happen
in a few weeks.”
– ‘Challenging times ahead’ –
In the state of Maryland, alarm bells rang after 67 residents of a
retirement home tested positive for the virus, with one 90-year-old man dying
at the weekend.
Maryland joined Virginia and Washington DC to become the latest parts of
the US to impose stay-at-home orders, putting three-quarters of Americans
under some form of lockdown.
President Donald Trump sought to reassure Americans that authorities were
ramping up distribution of desperately needed equipment such as ventilators
and personal protective gear.
But he also offered a stark warning, saying “challenging times are ahead
for the next 30 days” as he acknowledged a potential nationwide stay-at-home
order.
“We’re sort of putting it all on the line,” Trump said, again likening the
efforts against coronavirus to a “war.”
– ‘I cried getting ready’ –
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases around is now approaching 38,000
deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.
Health systems are in overdrive as exhausted medical professionals make
grim decisions about how to distribute limited protective gear and life-
saving respirators.
“Waking up this morning I cried. I cried eating breakfast. I cried getting
ready,” French nurse Elise Cordier confessed on Facebook in a post that
revealed the fear and anguish of those on the front line.
But, she said, once in “the hospital locker room, I dried my tears. I
breathed in. I breathed out. The people in the hospital beds are crying too,
and it is I who am there to dry their tears.”
World leaders — several of whom have been stricken or forced into
isolation — are still grappling for ways to deal with a crisis that is
generating economic and social shockwaves unseen since World War II.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s 20 major economies
were to hold a second round of virtual talks Tuesday to forge a plan for
confronting the crisis.
Last week, G20 leaders pledged to inject $5 trillion into the global
economy in hopes of heading off a deep recession. The virus has seen global
markets plunging in recent weeks, although trillions of dollars pledged to
offset the economic impact have provided some semblance of stability.
Experts in Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, said the virus would
shrink output there this year by up to 5.4 percent.
– ‘We need the help now’ –
Amid a global tussle for medical gear, Trump said would send some excess
shipments of equipment to hard-hit Italy, France and Spain.
European nations, meanwhile, delivered medical goods to badly-affected Iran
in the first transaction under the Instex mechanism set up to bypass US
sanctions on Tehran.
The number of cases in Iran has surpassed 44,000, with US sanctions
complicating efforts to rein in the virus’ spread.
The economic pain of lockdowns is especially acute in impoverished cities
in Africa and Asia.
Africa’s biggest city Lagos, joined the global stay-at-home, with Nigerian
President Muhammadu Buhari ordering a two-week lockdown for its 20 million
people. The measures also apply to the capital Abuja.
“Two weeks is too long. I don’t know how we will cope,” said student Abdul
Rahim, 25, as he helped his sister sell food from a market stall.
Poverty-stricken Zimbabwe also began enforcing a three-week lockdown.
“They need to be fed, but there is nothing to eat,” Irene Ruwisi said in
the township of Mbare, pointing to her four grandchildren. “How do they
expect us to survive?”