The world seeks economic remedy as the death toll on COVID-19 increases

BRUSSELS: World powers rushed on Thursday (April 9) to build a global response to the human and economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the death tolls in the US USA And Europe increased more.

In a closed New York, the UN Security Council would meet for the first time in the pandemic, and in Brussels, EU finance ministers were discussing how to rescue Italy and Spain.

On the spiritual front, Pope Francis was preparing to celebrate Holy Thursday with the Lord’s Supper Mass, but he could not carry out the tradition of washing the feet of the faithful in case of infection.

And Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned Muslim worshipers to pray at home rather than in crowded mosques, even as the holy month of Ramadan begins later this month.

Yemen was already in the midst of a humanitarian tragedy caused by its civil war before the virus broke out, but on Thursday the Saudi-led coalition supporting the government side began a unilateral “coronavirus ceasefire”.

Meanwhile, the number of global cases of the new coronavirus since it spread from China earlier this year exceeded 1.5 million, according to an AFP count. More than 88,981 people have died.

READ: WHO urges global unity, defends pandemic management after Trump criticism

Along with personal tragedies and pressure on overburdened hospitals, there has been a high economic cost, with the WTO warning of the “worst recession of our lives”.

The most affected countries in Europe, the most affected continent, are Italy and Spain, where daily death tolls have now dropped from their peaks, but still remain high, despite strict blockades.

Spain’s daily deaths fell to 683 on Thursday from 757 the previous day, while their total exceeded 15,000.

In Italy, the country’s youngest COVID-19 patient, a two-month-old girl, was reportedly released from the hospital, a bright moment of hope in a country with 17,669 deaths.

“VITAL” THAT THE EU RAISED ON OCCASION

Madrid and Rome seek help from EU partners to rebuild their economies in the aftermath of the disaster, but Germany rejected the idea of ​​the joint loan and the Netherlands is blocking a compromise solution.

EU finance ministers met later on Thursday in a video conference for the week’s second nighttime crisis talks to try to agree terms to allow the worst-affected members access to funds.

Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, said it was “vital” that ministers come up with a plan big enough to meet the challenge and warned: “If not all countries are cured, the others will suffer.”

READ: The IMF chief says the COVID-19 pandemic will spark the worst recession since the Great Depression

European companies are also suffering from a public blockade, which according to health experts is vital to slow the spread of the virus, but has effectively frozen economic life.

In one example, the German airline Lufthansa warned that it was losing € 1 million (US $ 1.08 million) per hour and that it would need state aid.

The virus has traveled the world and confined more than a third of humanity to their homes, but there has been a marked lack of international solidarity.

Thursday’s video conference meeting of the UN Security Council will be the first in the crisis since it began.

Led by Germany, nine of the 10 non-permanent members of the council requested the closed-door meeting last week, fed up with the body’s inaction in the face of the unprecedented global crisis.

The talks are moving in the right direction, diplomats said, and Washington no longer insists that UN language refers to the virus as coming from China, which angered Beijing.

Despite the origins of the pandemic, the United States is now the most affected country, and the UN headquarters city, New York, is now the most infected in the United States. On Wednesday, for the second day in a row, the United States recorded nearly 2,000 deaths.

There has also been a week of record tolls in Britain, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent a fourth night in intensive care, his condition is said to be “improving”.

READ: Coronavirus plunges the world economy into a brutal recession

And the pandemic is marching to areas that were previously only slightly affected: in Africa, Ethiopia declared a state of emergency and Liberia said it was blocking its capital, Monrovia.

The continent also faces great economic damage, with the World Bank warning that sub-Saharan Africa could fall into its first recession in a quarter century.

The deadly tentacles of the pandemic also deeply infiltrated the Amazon rainforest, with the first case detected among the Yanomami, an indigenous people isolated from the world until the mid-20th century and vulnerable to disease.

“PLAYING WITH FIRE”

Across the world, medical facilities are at a peak as they battle a relentless procession of critically ill patients.

In the severely affected city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, sick patients faint before reaching emergency care and the elderly collapse outside in wheelchairs.

“My grandmother died, my mother has all the symptoms, my 15-year-old sister too and the government is doing nothing, nothing! We need to be almost dying to receive assistance,” said Xiomara Franco, a relative of a sick patient.

“There is a lack of oxygen, a lack of medicine, a lack of nurses and doctors, a lack of stretchers,” complained Henry Figueroa, another angry relative.

Globally, the World Health Organization and the President of the United States, Donald Trump, are embroiled in an ugly war of words, and Trump accuses the UN body of “blowing it” and being too close to China. .

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for unity at a time of global crisis, saying: “If you don’t want many more body bags, then refrain from politicizing it.”

“It is like playing with fire.”

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