Corona consuming whole communities in US, Europe

ISLAMABAD: Coronavirus continued to play havoc in Europe and America on Thursday as the global death toll reached 52,596 with 5,404 new deaths, confirmed cases surpassed a million mark, while about 210,582 patients have recovered.

According to latest international media reports, there are 1,007,436 coronavirus cases in the world, with addition of 72,240 cases on Thursday.

France on Thursday emerged as the country with most deaths in a single day as it reported 1,355 deaths, while 760 new deaths were reported by Italy, taking the toll to 13,915. Other worse hit countries are UK with 569 new deaths, Germany with 173 new deaths, Belgium with 183 and Netherlands with 166 new deaths.

The number of cumulative known deaths from coronavirus in France surged to nearly 5,400 as the country started including fatalities in nursing homes in its data. The United States - the world's hardest-hit country - recorded a total of 5,807 coronavirus deaths with addition of 705 deaths on Thursday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. It has confirmed more than 238,836 cases of the disease.

President Donald Trump is resisting calls to issue a national stay-at-home order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus despite his administration’s projections that tens of thousands of Americans are likely to be killed by the disease. One by one, though, states are increasingly pushing shutdown orders of their own.

The coronavirus pandemic death toll in Spain passed 10,000 on Thursday, as the country reported its highest single-day number of deaths since the outbreak began, with the total rising by 709 to 10,096 among 110,238 infections.

Jerome Salomon, head of the public health authority, said the number of coronavirus-related deaths in hospitals rose 12 percent on Thursday to 4,503 from a day earlier. He added that a provisional tally showed that a cumulative 884 people in total had died in nursing homes. This makes for a total of 5,387 lives lost to coronavirus in France.

Nearly two dozen Lebanese municipalities have implemented restrictions targeting Syrian refugees amid the coronavirus pandemic, including curfews that do not apply to other foreigners or Lebanon's citizens, according to Human Rights Watch.

The United Kingdom is looking at issuing immunity certificates to people who have developed resistance to the coronavirus, but there needs to be more research into the science behind it, health minister Matt Hancock said.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa announced the closure of all airports to commercial flights during the usually busy Easter holiday period to stop the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, which has taken 209 lives so far.

Turkey's death toll from the coronavirus outbreak increased by 79 to 356, its highest daily rise, while the number of confirmed cases from the disease rose by 2,456 to 18,135, health ministry data showed.

It said 18,757 tests had been carried out in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of tests conducted in Turkey to 125,556 since the outbreak began.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said a partial lockdown and other restrictions introduced to halt the spread of the coronavirus would remain in place until May 1.

Residents of Moscow, the epicentre of Russia's coronavirus outbreak, have since Monday been allowed to leave their homes only to buy food or medicine nearby, get urgent medical treatment, walk the dog or take out the rubbish.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday called for an emergency meeting between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies led by Russia, in the face of mounting pressure from US President Donald Trump to call a truce in an oil price war that has sent crude prices plummeting and engendered US shale oil producers.

Iran's parliament says Speaker Ali Larijani has tested positive for the new coronavirus and is in quarantine.

Canada's public health agency data shows the number of coronavirus cases went up by 1,115 in a day to 10,132. The death toll increased by 22, bringing the total to 127.

The United Kingdom's death toll from the coronavirus rose 24 percent to 2,921 as of April 1.

As of 08:00 GMT on April 2, a total of 163,194 people had been tested of which 33,718 tested positive, the health ministry said.

"Of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 2,921 have sadly died," the health ministry said.

India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, as officials battle to contain the country’s biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the capital, New Delhi.

North Korea remains totally free of the coronavirus, a senior health official in Pyongyang has insisted, despite mounting scepticism overseas as confirmed global infections crosses one million.

The already isolated, nuclear-armed North quickly shut down its borders after the virus was first detected in neighbouring China in January, and imposed strict containment measures. Pak Myong Su, director of the anti-epidemic department of the North´s Central Emergency Anti-epidemic Headquarters, insisted that the efforts had been completely successful.

Indonesia’s coronavirus death toll rose to 170 on Thursday as the world’s fourth most populous nation passed South Korea as the country with the highest number of recorded fatalities in Asia after China.