US nears 200,000 coronavirus deaths
Last week, The World Health Organization warned that coronavirus cases are surging alarmingly in Europe, with infections spiking to new highs. Many European governments imposed strict local measures in response and began weighing further lockdowns in a bid to halt a second wave of the pandemic.
Here’s what we know about where the pandemic and new restrictions stand this week:
- A new lockdown in Spain’s capital: Parts of Madrid are under new lockdown measures, which will affect about 850,000 people in the city for the next two weeks. During a news conference today, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: “We are ready to look into other scenarios if needed.”
- Spikes in France: French coronavirus cases are rising starkly, according to the French health authority website. A total of 453,763 cases so far have been reported in France, with 10,569 new cases in the last 24 hours as of Sunday evening. The test positivity stands at 5.7%, according to the Sante Publique France, the French health authority.
- Weekly doubling in the UK: The number of UK coronavirus cases is doubling about every seven days, chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance said, emphasizing that the measure was approximate. That would result in about 50,000 new cases per day by the end of October and more than 200 deaths per day by November, he said.
- What Germany is doing to prepare for fall: The German Health Minister is aiming to introduce additional measures to fight Covid this fall. Jens Spahn, in an interview with the newspaper Rheinische Post, described those measures as introducing so-called “temperature ambulances,” locations where those with Covid symptoms can get on-the-spot Covid tests.
