AFPWed, 25 Mar 2020 02:06 UTC
© Reuters / KHAM
India's billion-plus population went into a three-week lockdown on Wednesday, with a third of the world now under orders to stay indoors, as US politicians agreed to spend $2 trillion to counter the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Financial markets soared as the Senate and the White House thrashed out a stimulus package worth roughly 10 percent of the entire US economy, an injection Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said represented a "wartime level of investment".
President Donald Trump has voiced hope that the United States will be "raring to go" by mid-April, but his optimism appeared to stand almost alone among world leaders, who were ratcheting up the movement restrictions in a bid to stifle the spread of the disease.
India ordered its 1.3 billion people -- the world's second-biggest population -- to stay at home for three weeks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "total lockdown" call doubled the number of people around the globe under some form of movement restriction to more than 2.6 billion people."To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family... every street, every neighbourhood is being put under lockdown," Modi said in a televised address.
Mumbai vegetable trader Rafiq Ansari said his customers were getting angry over shortages and price hikes."I don't understand what's going on," the 35-year-old told AFP. "We are going to face major shortages in the days ahead."However, China, where the new virus emerged last year, loosened tough rules on the 50 million people in Hubei province on Wednesday after a months-long lockdown as the country reported no new domestic cases.
The provincial capital Wuhan -- the ground zero of the outbreak after it was initially detected at a market that sold wild animals for human consumption -- will allow residents to leave from April 8.- Olympics on hold -The pandemic has cut a swathe through the world's sporting and cultural events, and on Tuesday claimed the biggest of them all: the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to sound an optimistic note, vowing that the rescheduled Games in 2021 would be "a testament to mankind's defeat of the new virus".
The postponement marks the first time that the world's biggest sporting event, set to open on July 24, has been delayed in peacetime.
Across the planet, the grim COVID-19 toll mounted further, with more than 18,200 deaths and 405,000 declared infections, half of them in Europe, according to an AFP tally.
The medical situation is still critical in Europe, where hardest-hit Italy had mixed news.
The Mediterranean country's death toll shot back up to 743 after two days of slight decline from a world-record peak of 793 on Saturday. But officially registered new infections rose just eight percent for the second straight day.
Elsewhere Ireland ordered non-essential businesses shut, Britain planned a 4,000-bed emergency hospital in London and Spain called for practical support from the NATO military alliance.Iran's president warned that mandatory movement restrictions could be introduced as soon as Wednesday evening in the country, which has seen one of the world's highest death tolls from the pandemic so far.And nearly 130 million Americans, or 40 percent of the population, are under or will soon come under some lockdown order, including in the largest state of California.Many governments are listening to health experts who warn the only way to slow the epidemic -- and save the lives of the elderly and vulnerable -- is by imposing "social isolation" measures.
But Trump is not convinced the move is worth the enormous economic cost.
"Our country -- it's not built to shut down," he told Fox News. "You can destroy a country this way by closing it down."- Markets rebound -Global markets finally started to recoup some of the losses they have logged over a tumultuous few weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday surged 11.3 percent, its biggest rally since 1933 during the Great Depression.
The massive rise -- which was followed by huge jumps on Asian markets, including an 8.0 percent bump in Tokyo -- came as traders took heart from agreement on Capitol Hill for the largest ever emergency spending effort.
"At last, we have a deal," McConnell said, after negotiating into the small hours.
The Senate and House of Representatives still need to pass the legislation before sending it to Trump for his signature.
The US Federal Reserve earlier unveiled an unprecedented bond-buying programme, in a move not seen since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.
Finance ministers and central bank chiefs of the Group of Seven major industrial democracies vowed to "do whatever is necessary to restore confidence and economic growth and to protect jobs, businesses, and the resilience of the financial system".
Comment: In more news, the Spanish deputy PM, Carmen Calvo, has
tested positive for coronavirus. Russia's death toll from the virus has risen to 3 after two elderly patients
died in a Moscow hospital. Both of them suffered from pneumonia and had pre-existing medical conditions. Conservative outlet The Federalist rattled a hornet's nest after publishing an article by a physician in Portland, Oregon who
suggested a "controlled voluntary infection" strategy to contain the virus. He says by exposing those at low risk of "severe complications" to Covid-19, we will create a "herd immunity," which is how many diseases - chicken pox for example - used to be suppressed.
French president Emmanuel Macron
launched a military operation to help with "health, logistics and protection" during the crisis. The leader of the Nevada state medical team that banned hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat coronavirus does not actually have a
license to practice medicine in Nevada. His opposition to the treatment looks to be more about an anti-Trump bias than from medical knowledge. Another researcher pointed out that both Nevada's medical epidemiologist and state epidemiologist also seemed to lack the necessary qualifications to "make medical decisions related to infectious disease." Medical epidemiologist Stephanie Woodward has a doctorate in psychology, not epidemiology or public health; while state epidemiologist Melissa Peek-Bullock has just a BS in health ecology. While her resume touts her leading roles managing various local disease outbreaks, she lacks even a Masters in Public Health and neither woman appears to have attended medical school. Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to rear its ugly head.
Trump's Secretary of State continues his verbal war against China, this time
derailing a G-7 statement on the coronavirus. Following the teleconference with world leaders, Pompeo claimed that the rest of the countries are on board with being against China's "disinformation campaign. According to the German magazine
Der Spiegel, however, the other G-7 leaders did not see eye to eye with Pompeo on naming the virus after Wuhan - the Chinese city where it was first detected - insisting on the more diplomatic term "Covid-19" adopted by the World Health Organization.
Trump's top medical expert has
warned about the coronavirus coming back "in cycles." Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has
threatened to hold up the coronavirus stimulus plan over "anti-worker bias." Sanders wants to make sure corporations are not allowed to "lay off workers, cut wages or benefits, ship jobs overseas, or pay workers poverty wages." This ultimately did not happen though, as the Senate
passed the gigantic stimulus bill.
Syria has registered 4 new cases and
instituted a 12-hour curfew across the country.
Comment: In more news, the Spanish deputy PM, Carmen Calvo, has tested positive for coronavirus. Russia's death toll from the virus has risen to 3 after two elderly patients died in a Moscow hospital. Both of them suffered from pneumonia and had pre-existing medical conditions. Conservative outlet The Federalist rattled a hornet's nest after publishing an article by a physician in Portland, Oregon who suggested a "controlled voluntary infection" strategy to contain the virus. He says by exposing those at low risk of "severe complications" to Covid-19, we will create a "herd immunity," which is how many diseases - chicken pox for example - used to be suppressed.
French president Emmanuel Macron launched a military operation to help with "health, logistics and protection" during the crisis. The leader of the Nevada state medical team that banned hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat coronavirus does not actually have a license to practice medicine in Nevada. His opposition to the treatment looks to be more about an anti-Trump bias than from medical knowledge. Another researcher pointed out that both Nevada's medical epidemiologist and state epidemiologist also seemed to lack the necessary qualifications to "make medical decisions related to infectious disease." Medical epidemiologist Stephanie Woodward has a doctorate in psychology, not epidemiology or public health; while state epidemiologist Melissa Peek-Bullock has just a BS in health ecology. While her resume touts her leading roles managing various local disease outbreaks, she lacks even a Masters in Public Health and neither woman appears to have attended medical school. Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to rear its ugly head.
Trump's Secretary of State continues his verbal war against China, this time derailing a G-7 statement on the coronavirus. Following the teleconference with world leaders, Pompeo claimed that the rest of the countries are on board with being against China's "disinformation campaign. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, however, the other G-7 leaders did not see eye to eye with Pompeo on naming the virus after Wuhan - the Chinese city where it was first detected - insisting on the more diplomatic term "Covid-19" adopted by the World Health Organization.
Trump's top medical expert has warned about the coronavirus coming back "in cycles." Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has threatened to hold up the coronavirus stimulus plan over "anti-worker bias." Sanders wants to make sure corporations are not allowed to "lay off workers, cut wages or benefits, ship jobs overseas, or pay workers poverty wages." This ultimately did not happen though, as the Senate passed the gigantic stimulus bill.
Syria has registered 4 new cases and instituted a 12-hour curfew across the country.