Volunteers from the Blue Sky Rescue team disinfect at the Qintai Grand Theatre in Wuhan, China, April 2, 2020.
With death tolls soaring in the United States and western Europe, the world passed a grim milestone with global cases of the new coronavirus now over 1 million while the world economy spirals disastrously.
Just in the previous day, there were 6,095 new deaths — nearly double all fatalities in China, where the COVID-19 disease originated.
In a list based on officially-reported data, Italy has more than 13,900 deaths, followed by Spain with over 10,900 deaths. But the United States was becoming the new epicenter, with more than 240,000 coronavirus cases — by far the most of any nation — and over 5,800 deaths.
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Outside the West, China’s epidemic has stabilized after draconian containment measures and it was planning to mourn its “martyrs” on Saturday with a three-minute silence.
The outbreak in badly-hit Iran still raged while it sparred with traditional foe the United States on the geopolitical stage.
With Europe accounting for more than half of cases around the world, France and Britain were also struggling to prop up health services under massive strain.
Though the official figures were shocking enough, health experts and even some governments acknowledge they do not capture the full spread of the virus. It often goes undetected in people with minor symptoms or none at all.
With airlines largely grounded, businesses closed, layoffs mounting and millions of people at home under lockdowns, the economic fallout is become worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
Rather, comparisons were being drawn with such traumatic periods as World War II or the 1930s Global Depression.
Depressing data
In the world’s biggest economy, the US government has pumped in unprecedented aid, but still weekly jobless claims jumped to a record 6.6 million — double the previous week that was also a first.
Morgan Stanley predicted the US economy will shrink 5.5% this year, the steepest drop since 1946.
European stocks sank further.
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Morgues and hospitals in New York City struggled to treat or bury casualties, as state governor Andrew Cuomo predicted similar misery for the rest of the country.
Staff at one medical center in Brooklyn were seen disposing of gowns, caps and other protective wear in a sidewalk trash can after loading bodies into a refrigerated truck.
Spain and Italy were also counting their daily dead, but prayed they were plateauing as data at least showed a slowdown in daily increases.
Some 900,000 Spanish workers have lost jobs.
Criticized for unpreparedness, Britain promised a tenfold increase in testing. That is crucial to enable frontline healthcare workers to carry on knowing they are uninfected or potentially for people to return to work if they have had the virus and gained immunity.
But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s continued self-isolation, after testing positive, was a reminder of the risk.
Disaster for developing world
While prosperous Western nations are reeling, there is concern about potentially far worse impact in nations already sturggling with poverty, insecurity and weak health systems.
In Iraq, three doctors involved in the testing, a health ministry official and a senior political official said there were thousands of cases of COVID-19, many times more than publicly reported.
In India, many poor laborers were desperate after losing jobs in a three-week lockdown ordered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Food was low in slums.
“I’m very sure that he works only for the big people and not for a man like me,” said former Modi supporter Ravi Prasad Gupta, a worker laid off from a pipe plant.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro further played down the pandemic, saying it is “not all it’s being made out to be” and denying that any hospital had reached full capacity. But with his closest aides refusing to support his plan to relax coronavirus rules to keep the economy going, according to sources with knowledge of the dispute, Bolsonaro was looking increasingly isolated.
Though there was little cause for cheer anywhere, one positive offshoot of the crisis has been a massive drop in pollution. One expert said carbon dioxide emissions could fall this year by the largest amount since World War II.
Authoritarian governments from China to Venezuela have been rebuked for repressing people speaking out on the coronavirus. In the United States, too, the US Navy relieved an aircraft carrier captain of his command in punishment for the leak of a scathing letter seeking stronger measures for an outbreak on his ship.
New Google data from 131 counties showed the extraordinary decline in human movement. For example, in Italy, visits to retail and recreation locations, including restaurants and cinemas, plunged 94% in March.
By Cate Cadell and Lisa Shumaker/Reuters