Category Archives: Italy

Coronavirus: US records 2,000 dead in a day as Italy and India extend lockdowns

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Spain to let some non-essential staff return to work, but Italians shut in until at least 3 May

The US has become the first country to record more than 2,000 deaths from coronavirus in a single day, as its overall toll surpassed that of Italy, making it the worst-hit country in the world.

White House experts said there were some signs the spread of the disease may be levelling off, but the US now has more than half a million confirmed infections and in the last 24 hours 2,108 people died. Hotspots include New York, Detroit, Louisiana and the capital, Washington DC.

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Coronavirus: who will be winners and losers in new world order?

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Are state responses to the virus shifting the balance of power between China and the west?

Andrà tutto bene, the Italians have taught us to think, but in truth, will everything be better the day after? It may seem premature, in the midst of what Emmanuel Macron has described as “a war against an invisible enemy”, to consider the political and economic consequences of a distant peace. Few attempt a definitive review of a play after the first three scenes.

Yet world leaders, diplomats and geopolitical analysts know they are living through epoch-making times and have one eye on the daily combat, the other on what this crisis will bequeath the world. Competing ideologies, power blocs, leaders and systems of social cohesion are being stress-tested in the court of world opinion.

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WHO warns of ‘deadly resurgence’ if coronavirus controls lifted too soon

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As global deaths pass 100,000, White House adviser also cautions against lifting restrictions

The World Health Organization has warned that a premature lifting of restrictions on peoples’ movements by countries fighting the coronavirus pandemic could spark a “deadly resurgence”, as global deaths from the virus passed the grim milestone of 100,000.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, said it was working with countries on ways in which lockdowns could be gradually eased, but said doing so too quickly could be dangerous.

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‘Roast at home’: Italian mayors’ Easter warning to coronavirus lockdown defiers – video

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Mayors across Italy are pleading with residents to stay indoors on Easter weekend as the country prepares to extend its lockdown until 3 May to contain the coronavirus outbreak. This is what the mayors of Bari, Reggio Calabria, Messina and Lucera and the governor of Campania had to say

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    EU strikes €500bn relief deal for countries hit hardest by pandemic

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    Compromise reached after Netherlands relents on ‘economic surveillance’ of beneficiary nations

    A messy compromise to unlock €500bn (£438bn) of EU support for countries hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic has been struck after Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, warned that the existence of the bloc was at stake.

    EU finance ministers on a video conference call struck a deal late on Thursday after the Netherlands shifted on a demand for “economic surveillance” of countries benefiting from €240bn of credit lines via the European stability mechanism, a bailout fund for struggling member states.

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    How coronavirus changed the world in three months – video

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    In just three months, the coronavirus has turned the world upside down. But how did it play out so quickly? We take a look back to where it all began – from its origins in south east Asia, to its acceleration across Europe and the US. As the infection rate increased and countries went into lockdown, people began to find imaginative and inspiring ways of coping with our new reality

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    Lockdown keeps casualty figure low as Italian bridge collapses

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    Two drivers slightly hurt but fall of 260-metre structure revives memories of Genoa disaster in 2018

    A bridge on a normally busy provincial road in northern Italy collapsed on Wednesday but, with virtually no traffic due to the coronavirus lockdown, there were just two casualties who suffered minor injuries.

    The 260-metre bridge on the SS330 road near the town of Aulla – roughly mid-way between Genoa and Florence – collapsed at 10.25am local time.

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    UK’s coronavirus death toll: how does it compare with Spain and Italy?

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    Daily increase in volume of fatalities now puts UK on par with rises seen in Europe’s worst-hit countries

    A total of 7,097 deaths have been recorded in hospitals across the UK to date. Although this is lower than the death tolls in Italy, the US, Spain and France, the daily increase in the volume of fatalities now puts the UK on a par with rises seen in Italy and Spain.

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    Devastated by coronavirus, did Bergamo’s work ethic count against it? | Anna Bonalume

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    My home town took pride in hard work and enterprise. But a reluctance to go into lockdown might have been disastrous

    Lombardy is one of the richest and most productive regions in Italy and Bergamo is its beating heart. It is also my home town: the city where I spent my childhood and adolescence. The province’s million inhabitants are characterised by a strong sense of belonging: to region and to family. They take pride too in a no-nonsense, practical approach to life and a powerful work ethic.

    Today, Bergamo holds the European record that no town wants: it is the place where the coronavirus pandemic has cast its darkest shadow. Bergamo is a lazaretto of pain, where the priority of hospital managers is to select only the patients they think will survive. Its undertakers are so overwhelmed they have to ask neighbouring communes to take their corpses for cremation.

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    Lockdowns around world could last weeks more, officials warn

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    Spain, Germany and UK among countries to says measures could stay in place as deaths in Italy push past 15,000

    Officials from Germany to Spain said they expect the stringent lockdown conditions to stretch for weeks longer as Italy saw its deaths from the coronavirus pandemic push past 15,000 and infections in the United States neared 300,000.

    The virus has claimed 15,362 lives in Italy, officials said on Saturday, while the total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 124,632.

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    ‘Migrants never disappeared’: the lone rescue ship braving a pandemic

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    As the coronavirus crisis deepens, the plight of people crossing the Mediterranean to escape conflict has been all but forgotten. A crew of German rescuers is intent on bucking that trend

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    • After a two-month break, the Alan Kurdi migrant rescue boat is heading back out into the central Mediterranean, as asylum seekers continue to attempt the desperate journey to reach Europe despite coronavirus fears.

    The boat, operated by the German NGO Sea-Eye, left the Spanish port of Castellón de la Plana on Tuesday and is expected to reach waters off the coast of Libya this weekend.

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    Farmers across Europe bank on improvised armies of pickers to save harvest

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    Growers from Ireland to Spain says coronavirus lockdown has stopped migrant workers from arriving

    At this time of year John Greene is usually preparing to welcome dozens of Slovakian strawberry pickers for another harvest at his farm in County Wexford in south-east Ireland.

    The work is arduous and repetitive and he relies on their experience and stamina to get the fruit picked, packed and sold.

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    Coronavirus testing: how some countries got ahead of the rest

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    Germany was quick to see the threat while South Korea took an aggressive approach

    Countries have approached coronavirus testing in different ways, and in some places there was far earlier recognition than in the UK of the need to develop tests and kits and to have sufficient numbers stockpiled. Here is how some countries got ahead of the curve.

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    EU court rules three member states broke law over refugee quotas

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    Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland failed to comply with 2015 programme, ECJ says

    Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke European law when they failed to give refuge to asylum seekers arriving in southern Europe, often having fled war in Syria and Iraq, the EU’s top court has ruled.

    The three central European countries now face possible fines for refusing to take a share of refugees, after EU leaders forced through mandatory quotas to relocate up to 160,000 asylum seekers at the height of the 2015 migration crisis.

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    Coronavirus could be final straw for EU, European experts warn

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    Leaders are warned that if division prevails, pandemic will be more destructive than Brexit, migration and bailout crises

    The European Union has weathered the storms of eurozone bailouts, the migration crisis and Brexit, but some fear coronavirus could be even more destructive.

    In a rare intervention Jacques Delors, the former European commission president who helped build the modern EU, broke his silence last weekend to warn that lack of solidarity posed “a mortal danger to the European Union”.

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    Coronavirus is now contaminating Europe’s democracy | Jarosław Kuis and Karolina Wigura

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    Viktor Orbán is using the pandemic to seize more power. This backsliding could permanently change the face of the EU

    To say that Europe is united by its divisions is an exaggeration – but only a small one. Closing national borders during the pandemic may have been a rational health response, but the longer term political consequences become more troubling when we look at the order in which European governments began to reimpose frontiers.

    Italy made the decision on 10 March, when the number of confirmed cases had already exceeded 10,000. Over the next five days, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary closed their borders one after the other, even though by that time in any of them the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases had not reach a hundred.

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    Food baskets for vulnerable lowered from balconies in Italy – video

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    People in Naples have been filling bread baskets with hot and cold food, and lowering them from their balconies for the homeless and people struggling during the nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

    The initiative started in one street, but has been copied by other residents in the city. Lucarriello, who filled a basket, said it was important to look after each other while people waited for state intervention

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    If coronavirus sinks the eurozone, the ‘frugal four’ will be to blame | David Adler and Jerome Roos

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    The Dutch-led opposition to a ‘coronabond’ to raise funds for nations hardest-hit by the pandemic is self-defeating

    Last Thursday, the leaders of the European Union convened a video conference to deliberate the escalating Covid-19 crisis. On the agenda was a simple proposal co-signed by nine different eurozone governments: the “coronabond”, a new type of public debt instrument backed by all the members of the currency union as they come together to combat the virus.

    After a long decade of crisis fighting in the eurozone – pitting north against south, creditor against borrower – the proposal marked a rare display of unity, and the meeting was a perfect opportunity to ratify it. Issued collectively, the “coronabond” would drive down the borrowing costs of some of Europe’s most heavily affected countries, staving off another sovereign debt crisis and freeing up much-needed resources to invest in public health and economic recovery. “We are all facing a symmetric external shock,” the proposal read, “and we are collectively accountable for an effective and united European response.”

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    Italian mayor douses ‘miracle water’ theory for lack of coronavirus cases

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    Clean air and a healthy lifestyle may be more likely reasons for the absence of the virus in a Piedmont village

    The inhabitants of Montaldo Torinese, a village in Italy’s northern Piedmont region, have so far been spared coronavirus, leading some to believe they are being protected by the “miracle water” that, according to legend, cured Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops of pneumonia.

    Montaldo Torinese lies about 11 miles (19km) from Turin, the regional capital where as of Saturday 3,658 people were infected with the virus. Across Piedmont, the fourth worst-affected region in Italy, there were 8,206 cases as of Sunday.

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    Coronavirus live news: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut told to halt non-essential travel

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    Centers for Disease Control advice after president backed away from sealing state borders; worldwide deaths pass 30,000 with a third in Italy

    Qatar Airways will continue to operate flights as long as necessary to get stranded travellers home but might run out of cash soon, Reuters reported.

    Chief executive Akbar al-Baker said: “We have enough cash to take us through a very short period of time,” adding that the airline would eventually have to seek support from its owner, the Qatar government.

    Domestic abuse victims are allowed to leave home to seek help despite the lockdown rules, the home secretary Priti Patel has said.

    Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Patel said restrictions imposed on the population by the government to stay indoors were even more challenging to cope with for people whose “home is not the safe haven it should be”.

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