COVID-19 death toll tops 274,000

ISLAMABAD: At least 274,625 people have died of the novel coronavirus since the epidemic surfaced in China late last year, according to international media reports.

There have been more than 3,984,488 officially recorded cases spanning 195 countries and territories. The United States is the worst-hit country, with 77,914 deaths. Britain follows with 31,241, then Italy with 30,201 deaths, Spain with 26,299 and France with 26,230.

Virus-hit Iran allowed worshippers to attend Friday prayers for the first time in more than two months, but the capital remains under restrictions amid the Middle East´s deadliest coronavirus outbreak.

Since reporting its first cases in mid-February, the Islamic republic has struggled to contain the spread of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. The government on Friday urged Iranians to take social distancing "more seriously" as it announced more than 1,500 new cases of coronavirus infection in the Middle East´s hardest-hit country.

In order to contain the spread of the disease, Iran has taken various restrictive measures, without ever imposing a lockdown or quarantine. Schools have been shut, major events postponed and inter-city travel banned since mid-March as part of those efforts.

But cash-strapped Iran has allowed a gradual reopening of shops since April 11. It gave the green light for the reopening of mosques on Monday in about 30 percent of the counties where the risk of renewed outbreaks is considered low. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 55 new virus fatalities in the past 24 hours took the overall death toll in the health crisis to 6,541.

He said another 1,556 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus over the same period of time, taking the country´s caseload to 104,691.

Russia on Friday registered more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases for the sixth day in a row, after emerging as a new hotspot of the pandemic. A government tally showed 10,669 new cases over the last 24 hours, fewer than Thursday´s record of 11,231 and bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 187,859.

The country also recorded 98 new deaths from the virus, for a total of 1,723. Russia now ranks fourth in Europe in terms of the total number of cases, behind countries where the epidemic hit considerably earlier: Britain, Italy and Spain.

On Thursday Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced an extension of a lockdown in the capital, where most cases are concentrated, to May 31. He also brought in a rule that people will have to wear masks and gloves in public transport and shops or face fines from Tuesday. Residents of the capital are only allowed to leave their homes for brief trips to a shop, to walk dogs or to travel to essential jobs with a permit.

Russia has a national non-working period until May 11 that so far has not been extended. In India, hundreds of paramilitary forces have been deployed in coronavirus-hotspot Gujarat state as the country on Friday faced a surge in the number of deaths and infections from the outbreak.

Official data show the deadly disease is taking a growing toll in the country of 1.3 billion people even as it begins to emerge from the world´s largest lockdown.

India had 56,000 cases including 1,886 fatalities as of Friday, official figures showed. But experts fear limited testing and incomplete record keeping are masking the true scale of the health crisis. The number of deaths has doubled to about 100 a day in the past two weeks, while the rate of infections is doubling about every 10 days, official data show. A week ago it was every 12 days.

Meanwhile, Spain’s health minister said the government will relax restrictions on the movement of just over half the country’s population next week.

Salvador Illa said Friday the areas that have met targets to ease an almost two-month national lockdown account for 51 percent of Spain’s about 47 million people. Starting Monday, the places that qualify for the next phase of a gradual loosening of constraints will be allowed to reopen outdoor seating areas for smaller restaurants and bars, with 50% of their seating capacity made available.

Social gatherings of up to 10 people, family reunions, open-air markets, church services and museum openings will also be permitted, though with some limitations.

The Madrid region, which leads Spain with more than 64,000 confirmed cases from the virus, and most of Catalonia, with more than 51,000, did not qualify for the partial lifting of restrictions.

Meanwhile, the head of a UN lab, which is supplying countries with COVID-19 detection kits, said shortages of materials needed in tests for the novel coronavirus remain “critical”.

In particular the chemical reagents for the tests are still in short supply, said Giovanni Cattoli, head of the Animal Production and Health Laboratory run jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“There is indeed on the global market a shortage of some items, particularly reagents, because there are demands from all over the world,” Cattoli said.

“The situation is still critical,” he said. “We are working... to accelerate purchase and investigate if there are alternative reagents.”

The tests the lab sends out use the nuclear-derived RT-PCR technology, which is now common for new coronavirus detection and can give results within hours.

Cattoli said one of the lessons of the crisis was “that we need not to rely only on a single type of test but to have a portfolio of tests and a portfolio of reagents in order to be prepared to have a plan B and possibly a plan C in order to respond effectively and rapidly.” The IAEA has received requests from 119 member states for test equipment to supply more than 200 laboratories, Cattoli added.

Of them, 18 have already received supplies with more on the way. The costs of each package of equipment — some 100,000 euros ($108,000) — are borne by the IAEA. “Some laboratories in some areas of the world don´t have the necessary equipment. They don´t have the necessary reagents and procedures to rapidly detect the virus,” Cattoli said.