News Desk :
Death tolls from Covid-19 stood 4,51,980 worldwide with total cases 84,68,727 in 213 countries and territories while recovered 44,39,805, according to worldometer.
Death tolls in the United States from Covid-19 reached 1,19,943 with total cases 22,34,963, according to worldometer.
The federal government’s leadership in the coronavirus pandemic has so waned that state and local health officials have been left to figure out on their own how to handle rising infections and navigate conflicting signals from the White House.
Covid-19 is still taking about 800 American lives a day – a pace that, if sustained over the next few months, would yield more than 200,000 total dead by the end of September. Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Oregon and Texas all reported their largest one-day increases in new cases this week.
On Wednesday, Oklahoma recorded 259 new cases, a single-day record for the second day in a row, and three days before President Trump is scheduled to hold an indoor campaign rally in Tulsa in defiance of his administration’s guidelines for “phased reopening.”
That rally is not the only confusing signal from Washington. The Trump re-election campaign is requiring rally-goers to sign a statement waiving their right to sue the campaign if they get sick. Businesses are reopening in the United States, but the layoffs aren’t stopping. That would make it the 13th straight week that filings topped one million. Until the coronavirus pandemic, the most in a single week was 695,000, in 1982.
Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 43 on Wednesday against 34 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases increased to 329 from 210 on Tuesday.
The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 now stands at 34,448, the agency said, the fourth highest in the world after those of the United States, Britain and Brazil.
The number of confirmed cases amounts to 327,828, the seventh highest global tally.
The northern region of Lombardy, where the outbreak was first identified, remains by far the worst affected of Italy’s 20 regions, accounting for 242 of the 329 new cases reported on Wednesday.
People registered as currently carrying the illness fell to 23,925 from 24,569 the day before.
There were 163 people in intensive care on Wednesday, down from 177 on Tuesday, maintaining a long-running decline. Of those originally infected, 179,455 were declared recovered against 178,526 a day earlier.
The agency said 2.926 million people had been tested for the virus as of Wednesday against 2.892 million on Tuesday, out of a population of around 60 million.
Total death tolls from Covid-19 in Spain climbed to 27,136 with total cases 2,91,763.
The Spanish Health Ministry agreed on Wednesday to allow Barcelona and its metropolitan area, as well as Lleida to enter Phase 3 of the coronavirus deescalation plan a few days ahead of schedule. The two healthcare areas have been in Phase 2 for less than two weeks, which is the time allocated for each stage, and they were not set to change stages until June 21. The decision means that as of Thursday, June 18, all of Catalonia is now in Phase 3, the last step before the beginning of the “new normality.”
Only the Madrid region and the provinces of Salamanca, Segovia, Ávila and Soria in Castilla y León currently remain in Phase 2. The premier of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, confirmed earlier in the week that the regional government would not request the phase change given that the state of alarm will come to an end on Sunday, June 21, and with it the central government’s control on the deescalation process. “We were going to ask for it, but the effects are exactly the same, it doesn’t make sense,” she told the Spanish television station Telecinco on Monday.
Under Phase 3, regional authorities regain control over the deescalation process and are able to adapt and lift the lockdown measures as they see fit. More people are allowed inside stores; nightclubs and bars can open, and movement within provinces of the same region is also allowed.
The healthcare areas of Barcelona and Lleida were the only ones in Catalonia not to enter Phase 3 on June 8. Barcelona was held back due to the high number of coronavirus cases and high population density, which makes social distancing measures more difficult to implement. And in the case of Lleida, the process was slowed after outbreaks were detected in senior residences, health centers and in the meat industry.
