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Coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed eight million on Friday, as the world saw the highest number reported in a single day, while European countries tightened measures to control the spread of the pandemic.
The Johns Hopkins University case count in the United States is the highest in the world, followed by India with 7.4 million cases and Brazil with 5.1 million.
The United States has also suffered the highest number of coronavirus deaths of any country, with more than 218,000.
Worldwide, more than 400,000 new cases were reported on Friday alone, according to an AFP tally based on official data, a figure only partly explained by the surge in testing since the first wave of the pandemic in March. April.
Across Europe, the average number of daily infections rose 44 percent in a single week to more than 121,000.
“It’s terrible. I feel like being back in March,” said Hocine Saal, head of the emergency service at the hospital in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil, adding that the growing number of coronavirus-free patients makes coping with the situation “ really difficult “.
On Friday, Paris and other French cities marked their last night before an antivirus curfew takes effect, and Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Georges Gilkinet said bars and restaurants would be closed for four weeks starting Monday because ” our hospitals are stuck. “
But in neighboring Germany, a Berlin court overruled the nighttime restrictions.
In England, millions of people were just hours away from tougher measures, including a ban on mixing at home, while bars and restaurants were closed in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia.
In Greece, the densely populated northern Kozani area entered a new blockade.
By imposing restrictions only in certain regions, or only during certain hours of the day, governments are trying to slow the spread of the pandemic while preventing their ailing economies from a damaging lockdown on a large scale.
In the United States, the government said its budget deficit in the year through September increased 281 percent to $ 3.1 trillion, after Washington massively increased spending to support activity during the outbreak.
The previous record was $ 1.4 trillion in 2009, during the global financial crisis.
On Friday, the death toll from the coronavirus so far surpassed 1.1 million worldwide, out of nearly 39 million cases.
– Vaccine hopes –
Meanwhile, hopes for one of the most promising treatments for the coronavirus, the antiviral drug remdesivir, were dashed when a study backed by the World Health Organization found that it does little to prevent deaths from the disease.
But the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said that if the expected safety data in the third week of November is positive, it will apply for emergency use authorization in the US for its coronavirus vaccine.
Massachusetts-based Moderna has already said it aims to apply for clearance for its candidate on November 25.
Funded by the US government, both companies have been running large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials since July and have already started producing doses, with tens of millions potentially available by the end of the year.
But experts warn that even when vaccines are approved, it will take many months for them to become widely available.
“We are operating at the speed of science. This means that we can know if our vaccine is effective or not by the end of October, ”wrote Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in an open letter.
– The reaction grows –
In France, the curfew that affected some 20 million people in Paris and eight other cities was supposed to start at midnight and then go into full effect on Saturday from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am for the next several weeks.
While it has broad public support, officials are concerned about the high social and economic costs of a measure that will last at least a month.
In many European countries, infection controls have sparked a backlash from defiant local authorities and businesses desperate for a living.
Marseille Mayor Michele Rubirola, who is also a doctor, said the curfew was due to insufficient efforts by the French government to strengthen hospital systems, costing residents “their daily pleasures (and) their freedom. “and it also hurt hotel companies.
A similar unease was felt in England, where London and seven other areas faced new restrictions from Saturday, enraging leaders in the North West of England, especially Manchester.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged that the restrictions were “far from being a painless course of action.”
“But I must emphasize that the situation in Greater Manchester is serious and is getting worse with each passing day,” he added.
In Berlin, irate restaurant owners successfully challenged in court an order to close bars and restaurants starting at 11 pm.
The judges said it was “not evident” that such a measure could help fight the coronavirus.
The suspension echoed a similar court ruling in Madrid earlier this month that lifted restrictions on 4.5 million people in and around the capital.
In Barcelona, people who work in hospitality took to the streets, banging on pots and pans and throwing eggs at the city hall after bars and restaurants closed.
And in Brussels, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin had to leave an EU summit after coming into contact with an infected person.
Risks of infection led some leaders to urge the bloc to return to virtual meetings, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already canceled a summit in Berlin on November 16.
