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by Darko DURIDANSKI with Sally MAIRS in Belgrade SKOPJE, Republic of North Macedonia (AFP) — With hospitals lacking equipment and low on doctors who have been steadily moving abroad, Balkan countries fear the worst as they watch the new coronavirus ravage their far richer European neighbors. “If much bigger and wealthier countries couldn’t contain the sharp increase of infections, what can be expected from ours?” Zoran Hristovski, a Skopje resident in his late 40s, said. […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The coronavirus has killed another 240 people in France, the top French health official said on Tuesday, bringing the death toll in the country from the pandemic to 1,100. Jerome Salomon told reporters that 22,300 people had tested positive for the virus in France, with a total of 10,176 hospitalized of whom 2,516 people are in intensive care. Officials believe that the published number of those infected largely underestimates the real […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Terrence McNally, a revered American playwright, librettist and screenwriter whose long career earned him four Tony awards and an Emmy, died Tuesday following coronavirus complications. He was 81 years old. McNally’s publicist said in a statement sent to AFP that the esteemed artist was a lung cancer survivor who lived with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He died while hospitalized in Florida. An openly gay writer whose subject matter included […]
KINSHASA, DR Congo (AFP) — DR Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi on Tuesday declared a state of emergency and ordered the isolation of the capital Kinshasa from the rest of the country to avoid the spread of coronavirus. The new measures include a ban on all travel from Kinshasa to the provinces and from the provinces to the capital to allow for the confinement of the city, he said. “Given the seriousness and the dangerous nature […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — France on Tuesday said it planned to organize financial aid for poor countries, especially in Africa, to help them from becoming future sources of coronavirus contamination. “We will have the opportunity to mobilize a real financial package, of help, to prevent this epidemic from veering towards regions or sub-continents which aren’t contaminated today but could be a risk for us tomorrow,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the National Assembly. Just […]
by Arman SOLDIN ROME, Italy (AFP) — They may not be a miracle cure or a vaccine, but respirator valves from 3-D printers have helped coronavirus patients breathe a little easier in the Italian epicenter of COVID-19. Italy has thrown everything at a pandemic that has killed more than 6,000 people in just a month, more than anywhere else. Hospitals in the northern Italian heart of the outbreak have had to make life-and-death decisions about […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — More than 2.6 billion people worldwide will be in lockdown once India introduces its measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic at 1830 GMT on Tuesday, according to an AFP tally. The figure represents more than one-third of a global population the United Nations estimates at 7.8 billion in 2020. At least 42 countries or territories have imposed a mandatory lockdown, including Britain, France, Italy, and Spain as well as Colombia, the […]
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman will chair an emergency virtual summit of leaders from the Group of 20 major economies on Thursday to discuss a global response to the coronavirus pandemic. World leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, will take part in the talks which the Kremlin said will take place by videoconference. “King Salman will chair the meeting to advance a coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Six hundred people have died from the new coronavirus in the United States, while the number of confirmed cases now stands at 49,768, a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed Tuesday. The US has the third-highest number of confirmed cases globally, behind China and Italy. The death rate based on reported cases is now 1.2 percent — but the actual number believed to be infected is far higher, which […]
by Harumi OZAWA TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese citizens reacted with bitter disappointment Tuesday at the news their Olympics were postponed after years of preparation but many said they understood the move in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Tokyo’s famous Shibuya crossing was thronged with late-night crowds of young people following the announcement, as Japan has not been subject to the same movement restrictions imposed on much of the rest of the world. Earlier in […]
by Dmitry ZAKS ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italy on Tuesday received more reassuring evidence that its coronavirus infection rate was slowing thanks to a painful lockdown that other nations are starting to apply at great economic cost. Health officials across the ravaged Mediterranean country are poring over every new piece of data to see whether two weeks of bans and closures have made a dent in the crisis. The harshest restrictions are theoretically due to […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The first known death of a child due to the novel coronavirus in the United States was a teenager in previously good health, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday. The death of the youth from Lancaster, just north of Los Angeles, was reported hours earlier by public health officials, and comes despite the disease not typically proving severe for juveniles. “A teenager in good health, succumbed to this […]
