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March 27, 2020

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Infections near half a million worldwide

THE number of novel coronavirus infections closed in on half a million worldwide yesterday, with Italy and the US on track to surpass China.

Health-care systems in Europe and New York buckled under the strain, with Spain’s death toll climbing to more than 4,000.

At least 2.8 billion people, or more than one-third of the world’s population, are under severe travel restrictions. But the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, scolded world leaders for wasting precious time in the fight against the virus that has already killed more than 22,000 people and infected over 480,000, thrown millions out of work and ravaged the world economy.

“The time to act was actually more than a month ago or two months ago,” he said on Wednesday. “We squandered the first window of opportunity ... This is a second opportunity, which we should not squander.”

In the United States, where deaths passed 1,050 and about 70,000 people were infected, New York has emerged as a virus hot spot. The state had more than 350 deaths.

Spain has become the country in Europe where the outbreak is spreading the fastest. Yesterday, its health ministry reported nearly 8,600 new infections and 655 deaths, bringing the total cases to over 56,00 and more than 4,000 fatalities — second only to Italy’s death toll of about 7,500.




 

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