France death toll tops 6,500 as world faces critical equipment shortage
Ian Collier, news reporter
4 hrs ago
© Getty
Medical staff carry a patient infected with coronavirus in Bordeaux
France's
coronavirus death toll has risen by more than 1,000 to around 6,500
- as another 160,000 police officers were deployed to enforce the
country's strict confinement laws.
The
head of the country's national health agency said the steep rise in
fatalities was because the figures included deaths from around
3,000 care homes for the elderly.
Worldwide,
confirmed
infections
surged past one million and deaths topped 54,000, according to a
tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Experts
say both numbers are seriously under-counted because of the lack of
testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are
underplaying the extent of the crisis.
© Getty
People applaud on their balconies to thank healthcare workers in
Ronda, Spain
[Pics] The Best "You Only Had One Job" Fails
Europe's three worst-hit countries - Italy, Spain and France - surpassed 30,000 dead, or over half of the global toll.
However,
there was a glimmer of hope in Italy, which has seen nearly 14,000
deaths, after a flattening of the number of new infections.
Spain
on Friday reported 932 new COVID-19
deaths,
down slightly from the record it hit a day earlier.
Elsewhere
in Europe, officials have begun talking tentatively about how to
lift lockdowns that have staved off the total collapse of strained
health systems but also battered economies.
Austria
said it will set out a timetable next week for what could be "a
slow start-up" of closed parts of the economy.
The
head of Germany's national disease control centre said he expects
that any easing of the country's lockdown, which this week was
extended to 19 April, will be staggered.
Meanwhile,
shortages
of critical equipment
have led to fierce competition among buyers from Europe, the US and
elsewhere.
A
regional leader in Paris described the scramble to find masks a
"worldwide treasure hunt".
New
York governor Andrew Cuomo warned this week that New York could run
out of ventilators in six days.
Donald
Trump has urged Americans to wear face masks
in public to help fight the spread of coronavirus - but insisted he
will not follow suit because "he doesn't want to".
Despite
the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), the president said he had no intention of following the
advice himself, adding: "I'm choosing not to do it."
The
French prime minister has said he is "fighting hour by hour"
to ward off shortages of essential drugs used to keep COVID-19
patients alive.
Philippe
Montravers, an anaesthesiologist in Paris, said medics are
preparing to fall back on older drugs such as the opiates fetanyl
and morphine that had fallen out of favour because newer
painkillers are in short supply.
"The
work is extremely tough and heavy," he said.
"We've
had doctors, nurses, care-givers who got sick, infected ... but who
have come back after recovering. It's a bit like those World War I
soldiers who were injured and came back to fight."
It
comes as the head of the International Monetary Fund said the
recession sparked by the coronavirus pandemic is "way worse"
than the 2008 global financial crisis.
IMF
managing director Kristalina Georgieva described the situation as
"a crisis like no other".
Ms
Georgieva said 90 countries have already approached the institution
for emergency financing.
No comments:
Post a Comment