News Desk :
Total fatalities from Covid-19 climbed to 3,74,405 globally while infected 62,94,050 in 210 countries and territories and recovered 28,64,641, according to worldometer.
Total fatalities from Covid-19 in the United States climbed to 1,06,208 while infected 18,37,830, according to worldometer.
In Wake Forest, North Carolina, a town of about 40,000 near Raleigh, a sweeping national survey of COVID-19 symptoms has exposed a staggering ethnic divide.
Nearly two-thirds of Wake Forest’s Hispanic homes surveyed reported suffering the combination of symptoms most closely tied to the coronavirus, compared to less than 1% of everyone else.
Across the nation, Hispanic households said yes to symptoms of COVID-19 – the lung disease caused by the virus – nearly a third more often than others, a USA TODAY analysis found.
When the list of symptoms is narrowed to what the Centers for Disease Control recently identified as the most serious pairs of ailments – dry cough and difficulty breathing, or fever and loss of taste or smell – the differences were far starker: Hispanics experienced them almost twice as often. Overall, 1 in 12 Hispanic households said someone in their home experienced those combinations at least once from late March to late May, compared with 1 in 21 non-Hispanic households.
As the pandemic progresses, evidence is mounting that the virus has hit people of color the hardest for reasons ranging from chronic health issues to service sector jobs. The symptoms survey, however, offers a unique window into the hidden prevalence of COVID-19, public health experts said. The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday.
“In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus contagion.
“The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.
Italy has the third highest death toll in the world from COVID-19, with 33,415 people dying since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21. It has the sixth highest global tally of cases at 233,019.
However new infections and fatalities have fallen steadily in May and the country is unwinding some of the most rigid lockdown restrictions introduced anywhere on the continent. Zangrillo said some experts were too alarmist about the prospect of a second wave of infections and politicians needed to take into account the new reality.
“We’ve got to get back to being a normal country,” he said. “Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country.”
The government urged caution, saying it was far too soon to claim victory.
“Pending scientific evidence to support the thesis that the virus has disappeared … I would invite those who say they are sure of it not to confuse Italians,” Sandra Zampa, an undersecretary at the health ministry, said in a statement.
“We should instead invite Italians to maintain the maximum caution, maintain physical distancing, avoid large groups, to frequently wash their hands and to wear masks.”
A second doctor from northern Italy told the national ANSA news agency that he was also seeing the coronavirus weaken. “The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today,” said Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital in the city of Genoa.
“It is clear that today the COVID-19 disease is different.”
Spain’s prime minister said on Sunday the country needed 15 more days of lockdown until June 21 “to finish with the pandemic once and for all”, and he would ask parliament to approve a final two-week extension to the stay home rule.
“We have almost achieved what we set out to do,” Pedro Sanchez told a press conference, as he expressed his intense relief that the number of new cases of COVID-19 in Spain, one of the nations hardest-hit by the virus, had fallen dramatically.
From June 21 a national state of emergency will end and with it the lockdown, allowing citizens to move freely in their regions. From July 1, citizens will be able to move throughout the country.
Spain’s death toll rose by two on Sunday to 27,127, the health ministry said, while the number of COVID-19 infections rose by 96 overnight to 239,429.
Spain imposed a state of emergency on 14 March which involved a strict lockdown under which people could leave their homes only to buy food, seek medical care or for jobs where they could not work from home. Children were initially confined inside all day. Restrictions are being gradually eased.
Despite opposition to the most recent lockdown extension from parties on the right and demonstrations across Spain, Sanchez has struck a deal with a Catalan separatist party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) which should guarantee his minority government secures enough support to extend the lockdown.
Sanchez warned people not to drop their guard, saying there was still a risk of new outbreaks. Authorities have been trying to act quickly when cases are found.
In the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta, health authorities on Sunday ordered the compulsory isolation of 121 people after 12 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in one area.
