July 14 (Reuters) - Here's what you need to know about the
coronavirus right now:
Restrictions reimposed across Asia-Pacific region
From Melbourne to Manila, Hong Kong and India's tech capital
Bengaluru, lockdowns and strict social distancing restrictions
are being reimposed across the Asia-Pacific after a surge in new
coronavirus cases fanned fears of a second wave of infections.
Many parts of Asia, the region first hit by the coronavirus
that emerged in central China late last year, are finding cause
to pause the reopening of their economies, some after winning
praise for their initial responses to the outbreak. number of coronavirus infections around the world hit 13
million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, climbing by a
million in just five days. Reuters' global tally, which is based
on government reports, shows COVID-19 accelerating fastest in
Latin America, the number of deaths there exceeding the figure
for North America for the first time on Monday.
Shutdown in California
California's governor on Monday clamped new restrictions on
businesses as coronavirus cases and hospitalisations soared, and
the state's two largest school districts, in Los Angeles and San
Diego, said children would be made to stay home in August.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, ordered bars closed and
restaurants, movie theaters, zoos and museums across the
nation's most populous state to cease indoor operations. Gyms,
churches and hair salons must close in the 30 hardest-hit
counties.
“It's incumbent upon all of us to recognize soberly that
COVID-19 is not going away any time soon, until there is a
vaccine and/or an effective therapy,” Newsom said at a news
briefing.
The decision to cancel in-person classes puts the districts
at odds with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he might
withhold federal funding or remove tax-exempt status from school
systems that refuse to reopen. 'Worst-case' winter toll
Britain faces a potentially more deadly second wave of
COVID-19 in the coming winter that could kill up to 120,000
people over nine months in a worst-case scenario, health experts
said on Tuesday.
With COVID-19 more likely to spread in winter as people
spend more time together in enclosed spaces, a second wave of
the pandemic “could be more serious than the one we've just been
through,” said Stephen Holgate, a professor and co-lead author
of a report by Britain's Academy of Medical Sciences.
“This is not a prediction, but it is a possibility,” Holgate
told an online briefing. “Deaths could be higher with a new wave
of COVID-19 this winter, but the risk of this happening could be
reduced if we take action immediately.”
The United Kingdom's current death toll from confirmed cases
of COVID-19 is around 45,000, the highest in Europe.
Good news from hard-hit Belgium
Belgium, which has reined in the coronavirus after becoming
the worst-hit mid-sized country in the world, reported zero new
coronavirus-related deaths in 24 hours on Tuesday for the first
time since March 10.
As in many European countries that were hard-hit by the
pandemic in March and April, Belgium sharply reduced infections
by imposing a lockdown, which is now being lifted.
The total number of deaths reported by the national public
health institute Sciensano remained at 9,787. In the country of
11.5 million people, that works out to around 850 deaths per
million, the worst in the world apart from the tiny city state
of San Marino. The peak daily death toll was 343 on April 12.
Bastille Day with a difference
France held a scaled-down annual Bastille Day celebration on
Tuesday, with none of the usual tanks and troops parading down
Paris's Champs Elysees avenue, in a concession to the COVID-19
epidemic still stalking Europe.
Instead, President Emmanuel Macron, standing in the back of
a military jeep, reviewed ranks of socially-distanced troops on
the Place de la Concorde square after a flypast by military
aircraft.
"I wish, with all the French, with the armies themselves, to
pay a vibrant tribute to health workers and those who, in all
sectors, have enabled public, social and economic life to
continue," Macron said in message released ahead of the parade.