Italy sees second successive drop in virus deaths
ROME, Italy — Italy on Monday reported a second successive drop in daily deaths and infections from a coronavirus that has nevertheless claimed more than 6,000 lives in a month.
The Mediterranean country has now seen its daily fatalities come down from a world record 793 on Saturday to 651 on Sunday and 601 on Monday.
The number of new declared infections fell from 6,557 on Saturday to 4,789 on Monday.
The top medical officer for Milan's devastated Lombardy region appeared on television smiling for the first time in many weeks.
"We cannot declare victory just yet," Giulio Gallera said.
"But there is light at the end of the tunnel."
Italy's National Health Institute (ISS) chief Silvio Brusaferro was more guarded.
"These are positive number but I do not have the courage to firmly state that there is a downward trend," the medical expert told reporters.
Italians will desperately hope that weeks of living under a lockdown in which even a jog in the park was eventually banned was the price worth paying for beating back the new disease.
Saturday's record toll was followed by a late-night address to the nation in which Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the additional closure of "non-essential" factories.
His government also banned travel to help a country that turned into the new epicentre of the pandemic last week get through a critical stretch in which restrictions are supposed to finally show results.
"Now more than ever, everyone's commitment is needed," Health Minister Roberto Speranza said after Monday's figures came out.
Italy's toll now stands at 6,077 — more than that of China and third-placed Spain combined.
Nerves starting to fray
Italy has sacrificed its economy and liberties by closing and banning almost everything to halt the spread of a virus the government views as an existential threat.
The nation has rallied around its exhausted doctors and tried to deal with life under a state of emergency with humour and grace.
Entire city blocks have organised balcony parties with nightly DJs. There have been singalongs and synchronised rounds of applause.
But Italians' nerves were clearly starting to fray and the pushback on social media against the ever-changing rules and tightening regulations was getting strong.
Twitter posts went viral ridiculing mayors and regional chiefs who threatened to jail joggers and fine people for walking their dogs too far from their homes.
The government's new partial ban of seemingly random industries added to an air of confusion in the face of a disease Conte has called Italy's biggest disaster since World War II.
Auto part makers were allowed to stay open but steel mills were shut. News stands could still operate but book stores could not.
Decision time
The reality is that Conte's team is running out of things to close or ban.
Other nations are also watching the Italian numbers to see if Conte's ban-everything tactics work.
Italy is on the frontline of a war against a disease being fought by means that currently restrict freedoms and devastate economies.
Some are starting to openly ask if this price is too high — even as the global death toll soars.
Officials pleaded with the nation of 60 million — people accustomed to celebrating life outdoors deep into the night — to sacrifice individual liberties for the common good for two weeks.
The initial restrictions placed on the northern epicentre of the pandemic around Milan expired on Sunday and the national measures are set to end on Wednesday.
Conte indicated last week that he might need to extend the restrictions indefinitely.
His decision is expected within days.
"If everyone — and I stress everyone -—respects our bans, we will emerge from this very difficult test first," Conte said on Monday.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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