European Leaders Warn of Bleak Winter Ahead

Date: 26 October 2020 - 21:41

News ID: ۸۴۱۷۷

MILAN (Reuters) -- European leaders warned of a bleak winter as resurgent COVID-19 infections forced countries to impose new restrictions to try to curb a second wave of the pandemic, with the United States, Russia and France setting new daily records for cases.
More than 42.9 million people are reported to have been infected by the coronavirus globally and 1,151,929 have died, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has the highest number of deaths and infections.
Word that a vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc produced immune responses in both elderly and young people offered some positive news as autumn turns to winter in the Northern Hemisphere and people socialize indoors.
But British Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned that the vaccine would not be widely available until next year and said "we’re not there yet”.
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a tough re-election battle on Nov. 3, lashed out again at the media after reports that coronavirus is surging across the United States.
"Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all time high,” Trump said in a Twitter post.
In Europe the picture was unrelentingly grim as a string of countries reported record increases, led by France, which posted more than 50,000 daily cases for the first time on Sunday, while the continent passed the threshold of 250,000 deaths.
France may even be experiencing 100,000 new infections a day, Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who heads a council that advises the government, told RTL radio.
"We are facing very, very difficult months ahead,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of leaders from her Christian Democrat party, according to daily Bild.
In Spain, which has had more than a million cases of the disease, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned the country was facing an "extreme” situation as he announced a new state of emergency on Sunday, imposing local nighttime curfews and banning travel between regions in some cases.
Russia’s daily tally of new COVID-19 infections surged to a record high of 17,347 on Monday as the Kremlin warned the pandemic was beginning to take a greater toll outside Moscow.
With 1,531,224 infections, the country of around 145 million people has recorded the world’s fourth largest COVID-19 case load - after the United States, India and Brazil.
Italy, the country worst hit in the early stages of the crisis in March, imposed new curbs, ordering restaurants and bars to close from 6 p.m. and shutting down cinemas, and gyms and imposing local curfews in several regions.
In total, more than 225,300 people have died from the coronavirus in the United States.