The novel coronavirus has killed more than 1,20,000 people worldwide, nearly 70 percent of them in Europe.
US: Outside the epicentres of New York and New Jersey, the US coronavirus infection curves were “starting to plateau”, the White House task force indicated even as the country’s death toll has increased to 23,608 and some states on the east and west coasts began collaborating on strategies to reopen their economies.
Of the 23,608 US deaths, New York’s coronavirus death toll alone topped 10,000 but a glimmer of hope emerged as new hospitalisations continued to slow. Monday marked the first time in a week that the daily toll dipped below 700.
Chicago and Boston caseloads were now emerging as new concerns while social distancing measures blanket virtually all of America in varying degrees of stringency.
Britain: The number of people who have died in hospital in Britain from the coronavirus rose to 12,107, according to health ministry figures published on Tuesday. There is an increase of 778 deaths on the previous day and official figures also showed that the number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 has reached 93,873.
Spain: Spain’s death toll from the novel coronavirus topped 18,000 on Tuesday, as the rise in new infections dropped to its lowest level since the country imposed a nationwide lockdown last month. The 567 new deaths reported by the health ministry were slightly up from Monday’s death toll and they take the total number of fatalities to 18,056 — officially third in the world behind the United States and Italy. The number of new infections rose by just over 3,045, or 1.8 percent, to 172,451, the smallest increase since the country of around 47 million people imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 14 to curb the spread of the virus.
Iran: Iran said on Tuesday that the number of lives lost in the country to the novel coronavirus dropped to double figures for the first time in one month. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 98 deaths from the COVID-19 disease were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the overall count to 4,683. “Unfortunately, we lost 98 of our compatriots infected with the disease... but after a month of waiting, this is the first day that the death count has been double figures,” he told a televised news conference.
Sweden: Sweden on Tuesday reported that more than 1,000 people had died from the novel coronavirus, as a group of experts attacked the authorities’ approach to the crisis. Sweden’s Public Health Agency said it had recorded a total of 11,445 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,033 deaths. And it warned that because not all deaths had yet been reported over the four-day Easter weekend, the true number might be higher.