News Desk :
The death toll from coronavirus reached 1,10,005 while infected 17,95,693 in 210 countries and territories around the world and recovered 4,11,871 according to worldometer.
The United States recorded 1,920 deaths related to the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University as of 8:30 pm Saturday (0030 GMT Sunday).
The number of fatalities was lower than the previous day’s record toll of 2,108.
The outbreak has now claimed the lives of at least 20,506 people in the US, the most of any country.
The US also leads the world in the number of confirmed infections, with 527,111 by the Baltimore-based school’s count.
Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 619 on Saturday, up from 570 the day before, and the number of new cases climbed to 4,694 from a previous 3,951.
The daily death toll was the highest since April 6 and the rise in infections was the biggest since April 4.
After easing from peaks around the end of March, Italy’s daily death and infection tallies have declined but are not falling steeply, as was hoped by Italians who have been in lockdown for a month.
The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 rose to 19,468, the Civil Protection Agency said, broadly level with that of the United States, the other country worst hit in terms of absolute numbers.
The number of officially confirmed cases climbed to 152,271, the third highest global tally behind those of the United States and Spain.
There were 3,381 people in intensive care on Saturday against 3,497 on Friday – an eighth consecutive daily decline.
Of those originally infected, 32,534 were declared recovered against 30,455 a day earlier.
Spain’s coronavirus death toll rose for the first time in three days on Sunday, as some businesses prepared to reopen under an easing of the country’s strict lockdown regime.
A total of 619 people died over the past 24 hours, health ministry data showed, bringing the cumulative toll to 16,972. Confirmed cases increased by around 2.6% to 166,019.
Tough lockdown measures have helped bring down a spiralling death rate that reached on Saturday against 3,497 on Friday – an eighth consecutive daily decline. Of those originally infected, 32,534 were declared recovered against 30,455 a day earlier.
Spain’s coronavirus death toll rose for the first time in three days on Sunday, as some businesses prepared to reopen under an easing of the country’s strict lockdown regime. A total of 619 people died over the past 24 hours, health ministry data showed, bringing the cumulative toll to 16,972. Confirmed cases increased by around 2.6% to 166,019.
Tough lockdown measures have helped bring down a spiralling death rate that reached its peak in early April, and the new deaths reported on Saturday were the lowest in 19 days while the increase of confirmed cases has roughly halved from a week ago.
All non-essential workers had been told to stay at home, but the government plans on Monday to revert back to less strict curbs that were in force up to March 27, allowing some businesses to resume activities.
That has triggered concerns of a resurgence in an epidemic that has caused more deaths in Spain than anywhere apart from the United States and Italy.
Catalonia’s regional leader Quim Torra said in a Twitter posting that the government was ignoring scientific advice to “maintain total confinement.”
Antoni Trilla, an epidemics expert and government advisor from the University of Barcelona, had said on Thursday that the stricter confinement measures should be extended.
However, Social Security Minister Jose Luis Escriva said a less strict lockdown was now sufficient to prevent the disease from spreading.
“What we have seen in the past days is the result of conditions that were in place between March 17 and 27, and which will still be in place from Monday,” he told the La Sexta TV channel on Saturday.
The coronavirus is weighing heavily on the Spanish economy, with some 900,000 jobs lost since mid-March.
European Central Bank Vice-President Luis de Guindos said Spain’s reliance on tourism would likely leave it exposed to a worse recession than the rest of Europe.
“We’re talking about the worst economic situation since the (1936-39 Spanish) Civil War,” he said in an interview with the La Vanguardia newspaper.
Industry Minister Maria Reyes Maroto said the tourism sector would be slow to recover.
Restoring confidence in Spain as a safe destination for tourists would be key, and measures to prevent the spread of the virus, such as hand-washing and social distancing, would have to continue, even on the beach.
“Those patterns will be in our day-to-day lives for a time, you cannot take a step back,” she was quoted as telling newspaper El Pais.
France’s death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak rose to nearly 14,000 on Saturday, but the number of patients in intensive care fell for the third day in a row, raising hopes that a nationwide lockdown is curbing the spread of the disease.
The number of people in intensive care units fell to 6,883 from 7,004 a day before, down nearly 2%, while the number of people in hospital virtually stabilised at 31,320, up by just 53 or 0.2%, ministry data showed.
The total death toll rose by 635 or 5% to 13,832 – with 8,943 dead in hospital and 4,889 in nursing homes – but that was less than on Friday, when the total toll rose by 987 as nursing home deaths soared.
“We are confronting a massive and murderous epidemic, which has reached an unprecedented level,” health ministry director Jerome Salomon said at a daily briefing.
He said new cases kept arriving at hospitals and the French people needed to remain vigilant.
The ministry reported that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in France rose by 3,114 to 93,790, an increase of 3.4%, which was slower than the 5% seen over the previous four days.
The number of cases in nursing homes rose by 1,671 or 5% to 35,864. For the first time, the ministry gave a breakdown of those numbers, saying that 11,175 of the nursing home cases were confirmed cases already included in the confirmed cases tally. It added that another 24,689 cases were possible cases.
France does not test all suspected COVID-19 patients in nursing homes. Once two or three cases are confirmed by testing in one home, other residents with symptoms of the disease are tallied as possible or probable cases.
Adding the possible cases in nursing homes to the confirmed cases, France had a total of 118,479 confirmed or possible cases of coronavirus as of Saturday.
The U.K.-wide death toll from coronavirus rose 917 in the last 24 hours, British health authorities announced on Saturday.
The Department of Health reported: “269,598 people have been tested of which 78,991 tested positive.
“As of 5pm on 10 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 9,875 have sadly died.”
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock provoked a public furor after saying the U.K. had enough personal protective equipment (PPE) but that it was being “overused” by health professionals.
Healthcare workers have publicly complained since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak of a lack of PPE.
Alongside the lack of mass testing and shortage of ventilators, the issue of PPE has come to dominate criticism of the British government’s handling of the outbreak.
Hancock said on Friday that healthcare workers should “treat PPE as the precious resource it is.”
He doubled down on the controversial comments on Saturday, telling the BBC: “It is really important that people don’t overuse PPE either.
“I don’t want to impugn blame on people who have used more PPE than the guidelines suggest because I understand the difficulties in the circumstances.
“What I would say it is very important to use the right PPE and not overuse it.”
He told ITV News on Saturday that a total of 19 National Health Service workers have died from coronavirus so far.
His views prompted a furious reply from Dame Donna Kinnair, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing.
She told the BBC: “I take offense actually that we are saying that healthcare workers are abusing or overusing PPE. I think what we know is, we don’t have enough supply and not enough regular supply of PPE.
“This is the number one priority nurses are bringing to my attention. That they do not have adequate supply of protective equipment.”
Since appearing in China last December, the virus has spread to at least 185 countries and regions.
More than 1.71 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide, with some 104,000 deaths, and over 389,000 recoveries.
Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 has risen by 117 in the past day to 4,474, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on Sunday.
The Islamic Republic has recorded 71,686 cases of the new coronavirus which causes the disease, Jahanpur said.
Iran has been the country hardest hit by the pandemic in the Middle East.
Ten thousand graves have been dug in a new section of the sprawling Behesht-e Zahra cemetery south of Tehran to deal with coronavirus deaths, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.
Separately, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that restrictions on travel between cities within each province in Iran have been lifted, according to the official presidency website.
Restrictions on travel between provinces will be lifted on April 20, he said.
