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A woman holds the hands of a relative through a plastic film screen and a glass to avoid contracting Covid-19, at a nursing home in Castelfranco Veneto, Italy on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Coronavirus Europe: Italy passes 1 million cases, France overtakes Russia

  • France is now the worst-hit country in Europe, with 1.8 million infections, while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was hospitalised for Covid-19
  • Britain becomes the fifth country in the world to record more than 50,000 coronavirus-related deaths
Agencies
Italy, one of the European countries hit hardest by Covid-19, surpassed the one-million infections mark on Wednesday, leapfrogging Mexico to become one of the top 10 worst-affected countries globally, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

France, meanwhile, overtook Russia as the world’s fourth-worst affected country. It reported 35,879 new coronavirus cases, taking its total to 1.86 million.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was hospitalised after he contracted Covid-19 earlier this week, according to local media on Thursday.

More than 300,000 people have died of Covid-19 across Europe, and authorities fear that fatalities and infections will continue to rise as the region heads into winter despite hopes for a new vaccine.

With just 10 per cent of the world’s population, Europe accounts for almost a quarter of the 1.2 million deaths globally, and even its well-equipped hospitals are feeling the strain. More than 52 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally.

02:09

India, with the second most Covid-19 infections globally, sees a downward trend

India, with the second most Covid-19 infections globally, sees a downward trend

The Italian health ministry said the country had registered 32,961 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking its total tally since the contagion first struck in February to 1.028 million.

The top 10 countries account for over two-thirds of all the global coronavirus cases. The United States leads the list, which includes France, Russia, Spain and Britain.

Italy has reported 42,953 deaths so far, the health ministry said – the second-highest number in Europe after Britain. The country also has the highest fatality rate on the continent, at over 4.18 per cent, a Reuters tally showed. By comparison, the United States has a 2.33 per cent fatality rate.

In Italy, which became a global symbol of the crisis when army trucks were called in to transport the dead during the early months of the pandemic, daily average new cases are at a peak at more than 34,000 in the last seven days.

Deaths have been rising by more than 455 per day over the same period, but the rate appears to be picking up, with the health ministry reporting 623 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday – the highest figure since April 6.

For every 10,000 people in Italy, at least 170 are reported as Covid-19 positive and over seven deaths are reported due to the disease.

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In France, aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres is recruiting emergency help for French nursing homes, where more people with the coronavirus have died so far in November than reported in the previous five months combined, as a season of resurgent infections has caught up with France’s most vulnerable populations.

France is almost two weeks into a new national lockdown and the health ministry’s new case tally of 35,879 was up from the 22,180 reported on Tuesday but remained well below the record high of 86,852 reported on Saturday. Last week, infections reached over 58,000 and 60,000. New infections in the first three days of this week totalled just over 78,000, compared with over 129,000 in the first three days of last week.

New hospital admissions for Covid-19, at 441 over the past 24 hours, also stayed well below the more than 1,000 per day in the first half of last week. The number of people entering intensive care fell to 53, the lowest level since mid-October.

France also reported 328 new Covid-19 deaths over the past 24 hours, compared with 1,220 on Tuesday, which included a multi-day batch of 754 deaths in retirement homes. It has seen 42,535 deaths in total.

Medical staff take care of a patient at a hospital in France. Photo: EPA-EFE

Britain, meanwhile, became the fifth country in the world to record more than 50,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, a level that one of the nation’s leading doctors says “should never have been reached.”

Figures from the British government showed that 595 more people in the country died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, the highest daily number since May. The figure took Britain’s total death toll from the pandemic to 50,457.

Britain, which has the highest virus-related death toll in Europe, joins the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico in reporting more than 50,000, according to the Johns Hopkins tally.

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The overall British death toll is widely considered to be far higher than that as the total reported only includes those who have tested positive for the virus and does not include those who died of coronavirus-related symptoms after 28 days.

“Today’s figure is a terrible indictment of poor preparation, poor organisation by the government, insufficient infection control measures, coupled with late and often confusing messaging for the public,” said Dr Chaand Nagpaul, council chair of the British Medical Association, a union for doctors.

“This is a point that should never have been reached.”

03:39

Coronavirus: Europe’s second wave puts hospitals under pressure again as cases soar

Coronavirus: Europe’s second wave puts hospitals under pressure again as cases soar

Like other nations in Europe, Britain is experiencing a resurgence of the virus and has imposed new restrictions to curb infections over the past few weeks. Though England was put under lockdown last week, the government has been criticised for having imposed it too late, a charge it also faced when it imposed a Britain-wide lockdown in March.

Following the news about the death toll exceeding 50,000, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain is better equipped to handle outbreaks than it was during the first wave in the spring, when the country reported more than 40,000 deaths.

In addition to the prospect of a vaccine or vaccines against the coronavirus, Johnson pointed to a ramp-up in testing. Last week, the government started its first citywide testing programme in the northwest England city of Liverpool. It is planning more mass testing, including of university students in early December ahead of their return home for the holidays.

“We have two boxing gloves to pummel the disease in the weeks and months that follow,” said Johnson, who was hospitalised with Covid-19 in April. “But I have got to stress that we are not out of the woods yet. It does require everybody to follow the guidance.”

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Cyprus has put its entire southwest under a strict 19-day lockdown, banning any non-essential movement of people and shuttering bars and restaurants after a string of escalating restrictions failed to curb a sharp increase in Covid-19 infections.

Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Wednesday the lockdown is necessary because infections in the Limassol and Paphos districts jumped from 28 to 70 per cent of the national average in the last six weeks while two-thirds of hospitalised Covid-19 patients now receiving treatment hail from there.

Reporting by Reuters and Associated Press

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Italy passes 1m cases as France overtakes Russia
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