ISLAMABAD: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 296,000 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to international media reports.
At least 4,399,165 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 195 countries and territories. Of these, at least 1,644,702 are now considered recovered.
The United States has the highest number of total deaths with 84,355. Britain has the second highest toll with 33,186 deaths. It is followed by Italy with 31,106 deaths, Spain with 27,104 deaths and France with 27,074 fatalities.
China — excluding Hong Kong and Macau — has to date declared 4,633 deaths and 82,926 cases. It has 78,189 recovered cases.
More than 5,000 people have been infected with the new coronavirus across Afghanistan, health authorities said Wednesday, with the capital Kabul the epicentre of the deadly disease.
The milestone comes as Afghanistan grapples with a surge in violence that is pulling vital attention and resources away from the fight against COVID-19.
Health officials said they have conducted 18,724 tests in the country of about 35 million people and the total number of positive cases was 5,226.
While the official death toll remains low — 132 so far — experts worry the number of fatalities and infections will soar as more tests become available.
Russia reported more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, continuing a grim trend that has seen the country register the world´s second-highest number of infections.
Health officials reported 10,028 new cases over the last 24 hours, bringing Russia´s total number of infections to 242,271.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko told parliament more than 100,000 patients are now hospitalised with confirmed or suspected coronavirus, a significant jump from the figure of 80,000 he gave on Friday.
As many 136 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 3,551 positive cases were reported in India since Tuesday, taking the number of deaths to 2,415 and total cases to 78,055.
Meanwhile, the WHO said pinning down the source of the coronavirus pandemic should help in working out how COVID-19 has “invaded the human species” so quickly. The outbreak has triggered a fierce diplomatic spat between China and the United States — with the World Health Organisation at the centre of the row.
In late March, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping struck an informal truce in the war of words over the origin of the deadly disease.
But it quickly broke down. Trump has been accusing Beijing of being slow to alert the world to the initial outbreak in Wuhan, and openly suspects China of covering up an accident at the eastern city´s virology lab.
Far from the cross-Pacific spat, Sylvie Briand, the WHO´s director of infectious hazard management, said it was crucial to know the origin of the virus “to understand how it has evolved”.
“It is a virus of animal origin transmitted to humans. And so we have to try to understand how the adaptation of this virus allowed it to invade the human species,” she said outside the WHO´s headquarters in Geneva.
Many researchers believe the new coronavirus came from bats, but passed through another species before being transmitted to humans.
“The virus multiplied in these animals, changed a little in doing so and finally resulted in a type of virus” that is transmissible to human beings, said Briand, who in 2009 headed the WHO´s influenza programme during the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic.
Retracing the origin of the virus, by discovering the intermediate hosts, would “prevent the phenomenon from happening again — and avoid ping-pong” transmission between humans and animals.
“Every time it jumps from one species to another, the virus can mutate a bit,” the French scientist said. “That can have an impact on treatments — it can become resistant — while vaccines may no longer be effective enough.”
For now, there are still many unknowns, despite “thousands and thousands of samples” having been taken, notably from “many animals in the market in Wuhan” — but also from dogs in Hong Kong, said Briand, stressing that the analysis will take time. The samples are taken by WHO member states but the United Nations´ health agency “encourages them to share information with each other” in order to speed up research. The United States and Australia have called for an international probe into the origin of the virus.
More diplomatically, the WHO has called on Beijing to invite them in to investigate the source. Shortly afterwards in early May, China proposed setting up a commission under the auspices of the WHO to assess the “global response” to COVID-19 — and only once the pandemic is over.
The Chinese authorities insist that the plan should be signed off in advance by the WHO´s World Health Assembly or its executive board — the two main bodies of the UN agency, which host their annual meetings next week.
Meanwhile, Germany and Estonia submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council on a ceasefire in various conflicts around the world during the coronavirus pandemic, to replace one drafted by France and Tunisia that the United States has blocked.
Encompassing five major points — compared to the previous draft´s nine — the proposal by the two non-permanent members of the Security Council and seen by AFP “demands a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda.”
Such a move is intended to help some 20 countries in crisis or at war battle the coronavirus, but it is unclear if concrete steps on the ground have been taking.
The resolution borrows from the French-Tunisian proposal, using language agreed upon by the 15 Council members during negotiations that have been ongoing since March or that had been used in previous resolutions, such as making ceasefire exceptions to battle jihadist groups.
As in the French-Tunisian resolution, the new proposal calls for a “humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days” in order to allow for the delivery of aid to the hardest-hit communities.
A date has not yet been set for the vote, but it could happen quickly if none of the five permanent Council members threatens to use its veto, as when Washington criticised the mention of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the French-Tunisian resolution.
The German-Estonian text makes no mention of the WHO, so the uncertainty resides with China, which until the last minute insisted on a reference to the UN health group, even an implicit one.
The reversal came a day after Washington had agreed to the text, negotiators said on condition of anonymity.
Israeli police arrested 320 people at a Jewish bonfire festival celebrating an ancient sage, after worshippers rioted over coronavirus restrictions that denied them access to his tomb, officers said on Wednesday.
Though many leading rabbis have backed Israel’s curbs on public assembly as a precaution against contagion, some ultra-Orthodox Jews have chafed at the disruption of religious rites.
A focus of the annual Lag Ba-Omer festival, which took place on Tuesday, is the tomb in northern Israel of 2nd-century mystic Shimon Bar Yochai, which usually draws thousands of worshippers for all-night prayers, dancing and singing around bonfires.
Police said that this time dozens of people tried to enter the tomb in violation of coronavirus restrictions, and that in the ensuing crackdown hundreds more scuffled with and threw objects at officers, leading to mass arrests.
A northeastern Chinese city has partially shut its borders, cut off transport links and closed schools after the emergence of a local coronavirus cluster that has fuelled fears about a second wave of infections in China.
Jilin, with a population of more than four million, suspended bus services and said it will only allow residents to leave the city if they have tested negative for COVID-19 in the past 48 hours and complete an unspecified period of “strict self-isolation”.
Coronavirus screening has surged in South Korea since authorities introduced anonymous testing, officials said, as they scrambled to tackle a nightclub cluster amid concerns anti-gay prejudice could impede the response. The country has been held up as a global model in how to curb the virus, but a spike of new cases, driven by the cluster in venues in Seoul´s Itaewon district — including several gay clubs — forced authorities to delay this week´s planned re-opening of schools.
A 28-year-old sumo wrestler died in Japan after contracting coronavirus and suffering multiple organ failure, becoming the ancient sport´s first COVID-19 fatality, the national association said.
Shobushi, a lower-ranking wrestler belonging to the Takadagawa stable in Tokyo, died after battling the disease for more than a month.
A church in Australia has been fined for unlawfully advertising a purported “miracle” coronavirus cure that contains a bleach product, the Therapeutic Goods Administration said.
The medical regulator said MMS Australia had received 12 fines totalling Aus$151,200 (US$98,000) for promoting its “Miracle Mineral Solution” (MMS), which the TGA said contained a high concentration of sodium chlorite — a chemical used as a textile bleaching agent and disinfectant.
Nepal saw the highest single-day jump in its coronavirus tally, reporting 83 cases. But the country’s total number of confirmed infections remains relatively low at 217.
