Spain’s tally of coronavirus cases rose to 8,744 on Monday and the number of fatalities rose to 297, said Fernando Simon, the head of the country’s health emergency center.
 
The previous tally was 7,753 cases on Sunday, with 288 fatalities
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Haiti will close its border with the Dominican Republic as of midnight on Monday, Prime Minister Jouthe Joseph announced Sunday.   Joseph said an exception is being made for merchandise, which will still be allowed across the border after screening.  He said Dominican officials will test those aboard the vehicles prior to entering Haiti, and Haitian health officials will also test them upon entry.   
 
The move aims to keep the coronavirus, which has sickened 11 people in the neighboring Dominican Republic, out.  So far Haiti has no confirmed cases of the deadly disease. The country’s first suspected case, an unidentified foreign woman who had traveled to one of the countries where the coronavirus has spread, tested negative for the disease.  “We are asking people to take this pandemic very seriously,” Joseph said. “We are asking for the cooperation of all Haitian citizens as well as foreigners living in Haiti.” The prime minister announced that Haiti is also suspending all flights from Europe and Latin America. Flights from the United States are under evaluation, he said.  
 
“We are evaluating fights between Port-au-Prince and New York, Port-au-Prince and Miami, Cape Haitian and Miami, Cape Haitian and Fort Lauderdale,” he said. “We have an agreement with American air transportation officials that all passengers boarding planes for Haiti must be screened for coronavirus.” 
 
He said Public Health officials at the nation’s two international airports – in Port-au-Prince and Cape Haitian  – are already screening passengers for the virus upon arrival. Quarantine facilities have also been set up for passengers who exhibit flu-like symptoms. They will be required to fill out a special form, regarding the disease.  
 
“If you are asked to undergo testing or if you are ordered to be quarantined, we urge you to cooperate.  Don’t be angry, this is being done to protect our country,” he said. 
 
Joseph appealed to avoid traveling outside of the country, unless it’s an emergency. 
 
“We urge all Haitians to avoid all non-essential travel. Do not travel to any foreign country unless it’s urgent that you do so,” Joseph said.  According to the prime minister, the extra measures to reinforce the country’s land and maritime borders and its airports have been successful in keeping the pandemic out so far.    In addition to new restrictions affecting civilian travel, the prime minister said the government has cancelled all official travel.  Joseph said any official who wants to travel abroad must first get approval from either President Jovenel Moise, the prime minister or the foreign minister.  
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Berlin is trying to stop Washington from persuading a German company seeking a coronavirus vaccine to move its research to the United States, prompting German politicians to insist no country should have a monopoly on any future vaccine.German government sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. administration was looking into how it could gain access to a potential vaccine being developed by a German firm, CureVac.Earlier, the Welt am Sonntag German newspaper reported that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure CureVac to the United States, and the German government was making counter-offers to tempt it to stay.There was no comment immediately available from the U.S. embassy in Berlin when contacted by Reuters over the report.“The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a quote in the newspaper.“In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added.Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”CureVac issued a statement on Sunday, in which it said: “The company rejects current rumors of an acquisition”.The firm said it was in contact with many organizations and authorities worldwide, but would not comment on speculation and rejected “allegations about offers for acquisition of the company or its technology.”A German Economy Ministry spokeswoman said Berlin “has a great interest” in producing vaccines in Germany and Europe.She cited Germany’s foreign trade law, under which Berlin can examine takeover bids from non-EU, so-called third countries “if national or European security interests are at stake”.EXPERIMENTAL VACCINEFlorian von der Muelbe, CureVac’s chief production officer and co-founder, told Reuters last week the company had started with a multitude of coronavirus vaccine candidates and was now selecting the two best to go into clinical trials.The privately-held company based in Tuebingen, Germany hopes to have an experimental vaccine ready by June or July to then seek the go-ahead from regulators for testing on humans.On its website, CureVac said CEO Daniel Menichella early this month met Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and senior representatives of pharmaceutical and biotech companies to discuss a vaccine.Karl Lauterbach, a professor of health economics and epidemiology who is also a senior German lawmaker tweeted: “The exclusive sale of a possible vaccine to the USA must be prevented by all means. Capitalism has limits.”CureVac in 2015 and 2018 secured financial backing for development projects from its investor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working on shots to prevent malaria and influenza.In the field of so-called mRNA therapeutics, CureVac competes with U.S. biotech firm Moderna and German rival BioNTech, which Pfizer has identified as a potential collaboration partner.Drugs based on mRNA provide a type of genetic blueprint that can be injected into the body to instruct cells to produce the desired therapeutic proteins. That contrasts with the conventional approach of making these proteins in labs and bio-reactors.In the case of vaccines, the mRNA prompts body cells to produce so-called antigens, the tell-tale molecules on the surface of viruses, that spur the immune system into action.Companies working on other coronavirus-vaccine approaches include Johnson & Johnson and INOVIO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 
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Spain’s King Felipe VI has renounced any future personal inheritance he could receive from his father, King Emerit Juan Carlos I, over the alleged financial irregularities involving the former monarch, the country’s royal house announced Sunday.The royal house said in a statement that in addition to renouncing his inheritance, Felipe is stripping Juan Carlos of his annual stipend. In 2018, the former monarch received 194,232 euros ($216,000).The decision comes amid an ongoing investigation by Swiss prosecutors into an offshore account allegedly operated for Juan Carlos. The account allegedly received 88 million euros ($100 million) from Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah in 2008, which prosecutors believe could be kickback payments, according to the Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve.On Saturday, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that Felipe was named as a beneficiary of an offshore fund that controls the Swiss account with an alleged 65 million euro gift ($72 million) from Saudi Arabia given to his father when he was on the throne.Juan Carlos, 82, became king in November 1975 and reigned until his abdication in June 2014.Felipe, 52, denied any knowledge of the fund in Sunday’s statement.
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 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will step up government action this week in a bid to slow the spread across Britain of the potentially deadly coronavirus by accelerating plans to make the elderly stay at home — possibly for months — and for whole families to self-quarantine when any family member displays COVID-19 symptoms.The acceleration of planned new social-distancing rules marks the third policy reversal by Johnson in the past four days. The move comes after hundreds of scientists accused the government in an open letter of “risking many more lives than necessary” by delaying the introduction of more restrictive social-distancing measures.They are urging the government to start locking-down virus hotspots, close schools and order the cessation of flights from other countries affected by the outbreak, as other European countries and the U.S. have done.FILE – A woman wearing a face mask passes a Public Health England sign, warning arriving passengers that the coronavirus has been detected in Wuhan in China, at Terminal 4 of London Heathrow Airport in west London on Jan. 28, 2020.Johnson is basing Britain’s COVID strategy partly on the theory of “herd immunity, his critics say. His science advisers last week said there’s little the government can do to prevent the virus spreading and that the best way to protect the public from the virus in the long term is for most of the population to contract it, while shielding the old and vulnerable from catching the coronavirus.Once about 60% of the population has had the disease, thereby becoming immune in theory from further reinfection, it will provide some protection to those who are not immune because the virus will spread much more slowly or may just die out. The government’s priority, instead, is to try to slow the rate of the spread of COVID-19 to avoid the public health system from becoming overwhelmed. The ‘herd immunity’ strategy is being championed by Johnson’s chief science adviser, Patrick Vallance, and has become the focus of an increasingly charged debate, with its critics saying it is out of step with the lockdown strategies being adopted by Britain’s European neighbors. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference to give the government’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at Downing Street in London, March 12, 2020.Vallance last week described to British broadcasters how a majority of the country’s population of more than 65 million would need to be infected with the coronavirus for the risk of widespread future outbreaks to be minimized. Speaking on BBC Radio Friday he said: “Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission.”But many infectious disease experts say it isn’t certain that those who have been infected once, will, in fact, acquire immunity to it or any future COVID-19 strains. There have been several cases recorded in China and Japan of people being re-infected once they have recovered from contracting the virus the first time. They warn following a ‘herd immunity’ approach would mean accepting that more than 40 million people will need to get the disease and that even with a low 1% mortality rate, that would mean a likely 400,000 deaths. They also say Johnson’s science advisers are being too pessimistic about the chances of developing quickly a vaccine. “The government is playing roulette with the public,” said Richard Horton, editor of Britain’s The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal. “We need immediate and assertive social distancing and closure policies,” he tweeted. Other critics have compared Vallance to Dr. Strangelove, the character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 black comedy movie satirizing the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States.“The UK government has inexplicably chosen to encourage the flames, in the misguided notion that somehow they will be able to control them,” says William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health. He says he and his colleagues “assumed that reports of the UK policy were satire – an example of the wry humor for which the country is famed. But they are all too real.”Health Secretary Matt Hancock walks past a hand washing station as he leaves after talking about coronavirus at the annual conference of the British Chambers of Commerce in London, March 5, 2020.Under an avalanche of criticism, Britain’s health minister Matt Hancock distanced on Sunday the government from Vallance’s ‘herd immunity’ strategy, saying the government’s plan is “based on the expertise of world-leading scientists” and that ‘herd immunity is not a part of it. That is a scientific concept, not a goal or a strategy. Our goal is to protect life from this virus, our strategy is to protect the most vulnerable.”He said the government will be taking “dramatic action” to tackle the virus, including telling manufacturers to build on a “war footing”, ventilators and other health equipment to cope. He said the health service has an estimated 5,000 ventilators but will need “many times more than that.”“Our generation has never been tested like this,” he added. The plans include preparing the elderly and vulnerable to remain at home, possibly for as long as four months, banning large gatherings, readying the army to be deployed to guard supermarkets and hospitals, and the cancellation of elective surgeries. He said Sunday the government was also not ruling out closing bars, restaurants and non-essential shops. The British government is planning to buy up beds in private hospitals to help the public hospitals.Opposition politicians and some prominent Conservatives, including Hancock’s predecessor as health minister, Jeremy Hunt, are not assuaged. They are demanding to see the data and disease modeling the government is using to inform its approach and say the differences between between Vallance and Hancock on what the strategy is based on would suggest that Johnson’s doesn’t have a clear plan, despite assuring the public at a press conference last week that he does. Policy reversals are also prompting public nervousness, opinion polls suggest, with 47% saying the government needed to be doing more. On Thursday, Johnson and his advisers dismissed the idea that it is necessary to ban mass gatherings, saying it was not needed at this stage. Banning large crowds would not have a “big effect” on slowing COVID-19 transmission, Vallance said.A couple wear face masks as they visit Buckingham Palace in London, Saturday, March 14, 2020.But within hours, most major sporting authorities, including those governing soccer and rugby, suspended all matches. Following that, government ministers effected a U-turn and started telling reporters that mass gatherings would, after all be banned from next week. The government also initially indicated next month’s nationwide municipal elections would go ahead, only to reverse and announce they would be postponed. Criticism has also mounted of the government’s decision to delay the stay-at-home advice. On Sunday, Hancock told Britain’s Sky News the government did not want to act too soon and lock life down as fatigue would set in and people wouldn’t be able to maintain it. “It’s not an easy thing for people to do, it’s not an easy thing for people to sustain. But the critical thing is we need to be ready,” he said.But former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, says the government shouldn’t be delaying action. He has called for schools to be closed. “Evidence from other pandemics is that closing schools and large gatherings earlier rather than later stops the peaks of this kind of disease,” he said.Some epidemiologists agree that the British government shouldn’t be delaying ramping up restrictions. “Social distancing has worked in China, Singapore and other countries,” says Alan McNally, professor of microbial evolutionary genomics at Britain’s Birmingham University.Other disease experts, though, support the government’s pacing of measures. According to Michael Head, an epidemiologist at Britain’s Southampton University, restrictions will only work if there is a high level of public compliance. “You won’t get that over a long period of time,” he says. 
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People across France voted in the first round of municipal elections Sunday — one of the few major events that authorities haven’t canceled or postponed over the coronavirus outbreak. Voters may punish President Emmanuel Macron’s young party. French authorities have shuttered schools, restaurants and non-essential commerce across the country to help slow the coronavirus outbreak that now counts roughly 4,500 cases here. But local elections are going forward, despite criticism. Here, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, there was a steady flow of voters entering the local city hall. Malthilde, a mother of two, says she isn’t worried about voting —there’s just as much chance contracting coronavirus at supermarkets, which remain open. She’s more concerned about juggling a new job and her two toddlers who are now home, under the prevention measures, rather than at daycare.German resident Andrea, who as a European Union citizen can vote in these local elections, is also unconcerned about getting infected. “I voted here without any problems, said Andrea. “They have upstairs, at any desk, you have disinfectant, and there is no problem at all to vote.”Voters leaving the 11 arrondissement town hall in Paris. Lisa Bryant, March 15, 2020. (L. Bryant/VOA)Authorities were supposed to ensure a meter space between voters, and supply soap and disinfectant products at voting booths. Voters have been told to bring their own pens to sign the voting register. But experts nonetheless predicted lower-than-normal turnout. Parisian Jean-Michel Levy says he’s boycotting the vote over coronavirus concerns.“I’m not going to vote, not because I’m afraid, but I think it’s really ridiculous to maintain the elections today,” said Levy. “They should have postponed it.”Analysts predict these local elections may well deliver a blow to President Macron’s relatively young La Republique en Marche party, which has yet to build strong local roots — and because of a raft of unpopular reforms his government has pushed through.Paris is considered a key battleground, with Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo hoping to clinch a second term that would see her presiding over the 2024 Paris Olympics. The second round of voting takes place next Sunday.  
 
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Vladimir Putin has formally signed off on constitutional amendments that would allow the Russian leader to run again for president in 2024, the Interfax news agency reported on March 14.The announcement comes a day after it was reported that all of Russia’s regional parliaments had voted in favor of the measures.In January, Putin announced a major shake-up of Russian politics and a constitutional overhaul, which the Kremlin described as a redistribution of power from the presidency to parliament.But earlier this week, Putin, who has been president or prime minister of Russia for two decades, appeared in the State Duma to back a new amendment that would allow him to ignore a current constitutional ban on him running again in 2024.The Kremlin notes that Putin has not said whether or not he will run again in 2024.Other constitutional changes further strengthen the presidency and emphasize the priority of Russian law over international norms — a provision reflecting the Kremlin’s irritation with the European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies that have often issued verdicts against Russia.The changes also outlaw same-sex marriage and mention “a belief in God” as one of Russia’s traditional values.Both houses of the national parliament have already backed the changes as has every single regional parliament.“The Federation Council [the upper house of parliament] has received the results of voting in all 85 regional parliaments,” said Andrei Klishas, chairman of the council’s committee on constitutional law. “They are all positive,” RIA cited him as saying on March 13.The list of 85 regions he referenced includes two which are part of Russian-controlled Crimea, which Moscow forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014.Russia’s Constitutional Court must now examine the constitutional changes, which are due to be put to a nationwide vote in April.Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, urged its members on March 12 to rally behind Putin against what he said was a foreign campaign to discredit the constitutional reforms.The previous rules forbade him from running for a third consecutive mandate, but that changes with the provisions of the amendments, meaning he can seek a fifth overall presidential term in 2024, and conceivably a sixth in 2030.
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The Vatican has taken an unprecedented decision due to the coronavirus outbreak. All Holy Week services with Pope Francis will be held without a congregation, including Easter Sunday mass.It will be a very different Holy Week for the faithful this year, particularly for those in Rome. No one will be allowed to attend any of the services due to the coronavirus outbreak. The large crowds in Saint Peter’s Square will not be possible this year.A note on the web site of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household that appeared late Saturday said the faithful will be able to follow the events as they are streamed on the internet or carried on television, but no one will be able to actively participate.  Holy Week is normally one of the busiest times of the year for Pope Francis, with tens of thousands of people arriving from all over the world to join in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.  FILE – Few tourists walk in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, March 6, 2020.It is still unclear how the services will be held by the pope, or where exactly, as the Vatican is still to provide further details. Holy Week services begin on Palm Sunday, which marks Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Other important services include Holy Thursday Mass when the oils are blessed. Normally on that day Pope Francis washes the feet of prisoners but this is unlikely to happen this year.The Lord’s Passion service is normally held in Saint Peter’s Basilica on Good Friday followed by the Way of the Cross around Rome’s ancient Colosseum. This too is likely to be canceled or will take place without public participation. Pope Francis will still be giving his twice-yearly Urbi et Orbi blessing on Easter Sunday.Italian authorities locked down the entire country last Monday as the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak continues to soar. There are currently more than 21,000 positive cases in the country and the death toll has reached 1441. Churches in Rome have been reopened but all masses are canceled to avoid people gathering in one place.   
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French voters are going to the polls Sunday to cast their votes in municipal elections, despite an outbreak of the coronavirus and an outcry that the virus and the fear of contamination will keep many voters home. President Emmanuel Macron has insisted that the democratic continuity of the nation would be in jeopardy if the vote were delayed. Thousands of mayors and municipal councils will be elected in the two-round polls.     In the fight mounted against the coronavirus, France has closed the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.  On Sunday, restaurants, cinemas and non-esential retail stores were also shuttered. The second round of voting will be held March 22. 
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Cuba released dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara from jail overnight after dozens of prominent artists, including those traditionally supportive of the communist government, as well as international rights groups, criticized his arrest 13 days ago.The 32-year-old, known for his provocative performances criticizing authorities, had been put in “preventive prison” awaiting trial on various charges, according to his partner and art curator, Claudia Genlui.One of these was the charge of insulting national symbols, after the self-described “art-ivist” draped himself in the Cuban flag for a month last year, including in the bathroom, documenting his performance with photos and videos.Supporters said they were trumped-up charges to silence a vocal critic. The Cuban government, which usually does not comment on police activity such as the detention of dissidents, did not respond to a request for comment.But officials said this week on social media that he was not an artist and state news outlets ran articles on the importance of respecting the flag.’I am still in shock’Otero Alcantara said in a video released by alternative outlet El Estornudo that authorities did not explain whether they would maintain those charges against him when they released him unexpectedly.”I am still in shock because inevitably the experience of being in a jail is traumatic,” said Otero Alcantara. “But honestly I’m happy … [because this support shows] I am not alone, all I have done is not in vain, and Cuba is changing.”Amnesty International had on Friday named him as a prisoner of conscience. Otero Alcantara had been detained dozens of times at police stations over the past few years but never for more than 72 hours, and he had never been thrown in jail, Genlui said.Those who criticized his imprisonment included even some staunch defenders of Cuba’s 1959 revolution such as folk singer Silvio Rodriguez and painter-sculptor Alexis Leiva, or  “Kcho,” who was friendly with late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.”We are giving a very sad impression of backwardness, of the Middle Ages,” Rodriguez wrote on his blog. “How, in the middle of the 21st century, are we going to put ideological brakes on young artists?”
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Romanian lawmakers on Saturday voted overwhelmingly to approve Prime Minister Ludovic Orban’s new government, the same one ousted last month as the result of losing a no-confidence vote.Orban’s nomination by President Klaus Iohannis came amid Romania’s efforts to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has already infected 109 people in the country.
After Orban was sworn in, Iohannis said a state of emergency would be introduced in Romania on Monday. The measure would allow authorities to streamline decision-making and simplify the purchase of medical supplies.The measure will also make possible the allocation of important new resources for managing the crisis,'' Iohannis said.The minority government of Orban's National Liberal Party was backed by 286 deputies and senators, well above the minimum of 233 votes needed for approval. Twenty-three lawmakers voted against.The leader of the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, said it had supported the Orban government only so Romanians could have afunctioning statein the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.The National Liberal Party and Iohannisdon’t deserve this vote, but Romanians deserve a functioning state which can react quickly to the epidemic,” said Marcel Ciolacu, president of Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies and head of the Social Democrats.Orban, ministers in isolationOrban and his cabinet of ministers, who remained in a caretaker role after losing a no-confidence vote on February 5, have been in isolation since Friday, after a government party lawmaker they frequently met with was confirmed to have been infected with the new virus.Because of the risk of spreading the virus, ministerial nominees took questions from the corresponding parliamentary committees by videoconference, there was no parliamentary debate before the vote and Orban sent his remarks to lawmakers in writing.Before his ouster last month because of disputed changes he sought to the election law, Orban had been in power since November, when his government replaced a Social Democratic government beset by corruption scandals.
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Haiti’s first suspected coronavirus case has tested negative, the country’s new prime minister says.Joseph Jouthe held a news conference Friday at his official residence along with the director general of the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Laure Adrien, to try to calm citizens anxious about the country’s potential first case of the deadly infection.The health official described the tested patient as a female foreigner who had returned to Haiti after traveling to her native country, where coronavirus has spread. The woman was experiencing symptoms, which prompted concern and led to tests administered at the national laboratory in Port-au-Prince. The tests came back negative, officials said.   No further details about the patient were given. Cause for concern The prime minister also addressed a case that sparked rumors and fear among residents of the capital, regarding a group of 16 people who arrived in Haiti on Wednesday by bus from the Dominican Republic.   Minister of Public Health Marie Greta Roy Clement told VOA that the neighboring country had nine confirmed cases of the virus.Haitian officials quarantined the bus passengers Wednesday in the neighborhood of Tabarre, after one bus passenger died before crossing the border into Haiti. Prior the death, officials said, the person exhibited coronavirus-like symptoms such as fever and coughing.   The remaining passengers were tested for the virus, and results of those lab test results were still pending. A passenger wears gloves to use his phone while waiting to board a flight at Toussaint Louverture International Airport, March 14, 2020, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As of Saturday, there were no reported cases of COVID-19 in Haiti.Awareness campaignMeanwhile, mayors belonging to the Federation of National Mayors (FENAHM), who represent Haiti’s 10 departments, are launching a national coronavirus public awareness campaign.“Previous governments never made public health a priority. That’s why we don’t have adequate infrastructure to confront this virus,” FENAHM leader Jude Edouard Pierre told reporters. “So we want to help the government inform the public and we are starting today [Friday] in 146 communities nationwide.”Pierre said they were working with the health ministry to roll out the program and were asking the government to announce broad measures that would help the nation face the pandemic.  He said officials must identify all local enterprises that sell or produce masks, gloves, hand sanitizers and oxygen; make them available to those who need them; and keep them off the black market.“We are asking the government to act quickly to announce the names of companies operating in this sector and tell us which measures it is taking to prevent profiteering, which we have seen happen in other countries.  Black market sales have already begun here in Haiti,” Pierre said.He also discussed future school closures and stockpiling of food items to make sure those who are quarantined have adequate sustenance should that become necessary.“If we get hit with this virus — we are a small country. We don’t have adequate health facilities. We can expect big problems,” he said.Cayman Islands death Elsewhere in the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands announced its first coronavirus death Saturday.According to health officials, a 68-year-old Italian patient died early Saturday morning at a health facility in Health City.  He was transported into the country from a cruise ship on which he was a passenger on February 29 for critical cardiac care.  The man originally had no COVID-19 symptoms, according to officials, but after six days he began to show flu-like symptoms and tested positive for the disease.Yves Manuel Matiado Vilme contributed to this report.
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Spain decided Saturday to follow Italy in declaring a nationwide lockdown to slow the accelerating spread of the coronavirus epidemic, Spanish media reported.Spain’s decision came as European countries took ever more severe, though widely varying, measures to reduce contact between their citizens and slow the pandemic. China — where the virus first emerged late last year — continued to ease up lockdown measures in its hardest-hit region.According to a copy of the royal decree seen by The Associated Press, Spain’s government was to announce Saturday that it is placing tight restrictions on movement for the nation of 46 million people while declaring a two-week state of emergency. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was due to address the nation in the afternoon.Health authorities in Spain said Saturday that coronavirus infections have reached 5,753 people, half of them in the capital, Madrid. That represents a national increase of over 1,500 in 24 hours. The country had 136 deaths, up from 120.The number of new cases has dwindled in China, but the virus has in recent weeks spread exponentially in the Middle East, Europe and North America, leading President Donald Trump to declare a state of emergency for the United States on Friday. By Saturday, more than 145,000 infections and over 5,400 deaths had been confirmed worldwide.Europe has now become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with countries imposing a cascade of restrictions in efforts to prevent their health systems collapsing under the load of cases. Schools, bars and shops not selling essential goods are among the facilities being closed in many places.Residents in Madrid, which has around half the infections, and northeastern Catalonia had already awoken Saturday to shuttered bars and restaurants and other non-essential commercial outlets as ordered by regional authorities. Madrid ordered city parks closed and Seville canceled its Easter Week processions — one of Spain’s most important religious and cultural events.A man wearing a protective face mask walks at the usually crowded Plaza Mayor in central Madrid, Spain, March 14, 2020, after authorities ordered all shops in the region be shuttered die to the coronavirus.Coronavirus elsewhereSpain’s measures to date, though, had fallen short of those ordered by Italy, the worst-hit European country, which has reached a total of over 17,600 confirmed cases — the largest outbreak after China — with 1,266 deaths. The government in Rome has ordered an unprecedented lockdown, ordering businesses to close and restricting people’s movement.
Mayors of many Italian cities, including Rome and Milan, decided to close public playgrounds and parks. Under a government decree issued earlier in the week, people had been allowed in parks as long as they kept at least a distance of 1 meter between each other.While limiting public life to a minimum, Premier Giuseppe Conte has said production — particularly of food and health supplies — must not stop. On Saturday morning, union and industrial leaders reached an agreement on special measures to keep factories running.At noon, people around Italy came out on their balconies, terraces, gardens or simply leaned out from open windows to clap for several minutes in a gesture of thanks to medical staff.For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.Elsewhere in Europe, some countries moved to isolate themselves from their neighbors.Denmark closed its borders and halted passenger traffic to and from the country, a measure that was due to last through April 13. Travelers were to be turned away at the border if they are unable to show that they have “a legitimate reason” to enter, for example they are Danish citizens or residents.“I know that the overall list of measures is very extreme and will be seen as very extreme, but I am convinced that it’s worth it,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said.Poland was closing its borders starting at midnight and denying all foreigners entry unless they lived in Poland or had personal ties there. Non-citizens allowed in will be quarantined for 14 days. The Czech Republic and Slovakia took similar action.A man sits inside an empty tram amid an outbreak of the coronavirus, in Warsaw, Poland, March 14, 2020.Russia said its land borders with Norway and Poland will be closed to most foreigners beginning Sunday.On the other side of the globe, New Zealand announced that all incoming passengers, including New Zealand citizens, will be required to isolate themselves for 14 days, with few exceptions. Philippine officials announced a night curfew in the capital and said millions of people in the densely populated region should only go out of their homes during the daytime for work or urgent errands.The steps being implemented globally increasingly mirror those taken by China, which in January made the unprecedented decision to halt outbound transportation from cities with a combined population of more than 60 million people, starting with the epicenter, Wuhan in the central province of Hubei.The spread of COVID-19 in the country has slowed dramatically, according to China’s National Health Commission. Whereas the commission reported thousands of new cases daily only one month ago, it said Saturday that there were 13 new deaths and just 11 new cases, including people who recently arrived in China from other affected countries like Italy.The government of Hubei lowered its health risk assessments for all counties in the province outside of Wuhan, the only city that remains “high-risk.” Several Hubei municipalities are gradually resuming public transportation services and reopening businesses.Hundreds of parks, museums and art galleries have re-opened in Shanghai in another sign that epidemic-related restrictions are lifting.The waning outbreak in China stands in contrast with an escalating number of infections elsewhere.In the U.S., which reported its 50th death Friday, Trump said the new emergency decree will open up $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the crisis. The president said the decree also gave the secretary of health and human services emergency powers to waive federal regulations to give doctors and hospitals “flexibility” in treating patients.Drug company executives vowed to work together and with the government to quickly expand the country’s coronavirus testing capabilities, which are far behind those in many countries.Cases topped 2,100 across the U.S., where thousands of schools have been closed, concerts and sporting events canceled and Broadway theaters shut down. Trump has halted his trademark political rallies, following the lead of Democratic rivals Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
 
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Vladimir Putin has formally signed off on constitutional amendments that would allow the Russian leader to run again for president in 2024.His approval comes a day after it was reported that all of Russia’s regional parliaments had voted in favor of the measures.In January, Putin announced a major shake-up of Russian politics and a constitutional overhaul, which the Kremlin described as a redistribution of power from the presidency to parliament.But earlier this week, Putin, who has been president or prime minister of Russia for two decades, appeared in the State Duma to back a new amendment that would allow him to ignore a current constitutional ban on him running again in 2024.The previous rules forbade him from running for a third consecutive mandate, but that changes with the provisions of the amendments, meaning he can seek a fifth overall presidential term in 2024, and conceivably a sixth in 2030.The Kremlin notes that Putin has not said whether or not he will run again in 2024.Other constitutional changes further strengthen the presidency and emphasize the priority of Russian law over international norms — a provision reflecting the Kremlin’s irritation with the European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies that have often issued verdicts against Russia.The changes also outlaw same-sex marriage and mention “a belief in God” as one of Russia’s traditional values.Both houses of the national parliament have already backed the changes as has every single regional parliament.“The Federation Council [the upper house of parliament] has received the results of voting in all 85 regional parliaments,” said Andrei Klishas, chairman of the council’s committee on constitutional law. “They are all positive,” RIA cited him as saying on March 13.The list of 85 regions he referenced includes two which are part of Russian-controlled Crimea, which Moscow forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014.Russia’s Constitutional Court must now examine the constitutional changes, which are due to be put to a nationwide vote in April.Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, urged its members on March 12 to rally behind Putin against what he said was a foreign campaign to discredit the constitutional reforms.
 
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The U.S. travel ban on most flights from Europe, a part of the U.S. strategy in preventing the spread of the deadly coronavirus, has gone into effect. U.S. President Donald Trump announced the ban Wednesday night in an address from the Oval Office.  The 30-day ban blocks most foreign visitors from 26 countries in Europe, while accepting those from Britain and Ireland. Americans and American permanent residents who were abroad at the time of Trump’s announcement were initially not sure if they would be allowed back into the country after Friday. They are exempt from the ban, but that was not immediately clear in the president’s address.   Many of them scrambled to book flights back home before the ban went into effect. Mark, a U.S. resident who was in Spain at the time of Trump’s announcement, told Reuters that he came back “a little bit earlier” than planned.”  Trump made the decision about the ban without consulting any European officials. “The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said in a joint statement.”The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,” von der Leyen and Michel said. “The European Union is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”All Americans returning from Europe will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival back in the U.S. to try to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
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Kosovo will not lift its 100% tariffs on goods from Serbia and Bosnia anytime soon because the coalition government cannot agree on whether the import taxes should be phased out or abolished all at once, the country’s prime minister said Friday.Prime Minister Albin Kurti said his left-wing Self-Determination Movement, or Vetevendosje, wanted to lift the tariffs in phases, starting Sunday with raw materials imported from Serbia, as a goodwill gesture.The party’s main governing partner, the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, wants the import taxes dropped completely. Kurti wants abolishment of the tariffs made conditional on Serbia’s stopping an international campaign against Kosovo’s recognition as a country.The coalition partners have not found a compromise, Kurti said.“In the absence of a government decision, everything remains as it is, the 100% tax remains,” he said.The United States and European Union also want Kosovo to do away with the tariffs and to resume talks with Serbia on normalizing ties.Pause in fundingThe Millenium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. independent government agency, said on Friday it would pause implementation of a $49 million funding program for Kosovo until the tariffs issue was settled.Kosovo imposed the punitive tariffs in November 2018 over Serbian efforts to block Kosovo from joining international organizations. The dispute led to the suspension of the EU-mediated talks, which started in 2011.Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has described Kurti’s proposed phase-out as a trick.Kosovo was formerly a part of Serbia and won independence after a 1999 NATO bombing campaign that ended a bloody Serb crackdown on an armed uprising by members of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority. Serbia refuses to accept Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.
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Canada shut down Parliament and advised against all nonessential travel outside the country while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau governed remotely from his home, in self-imposed quarantine after his wife tested positive for the new coronavirus.Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer, also advised more social distancing, no handshakes and kisses.The Canadian government is advising the cancellation of all large events like concerts. Transport Minister Marc Garneau said cruise ships with more than 500 people will not be able to dock in Canada until July 1.Overseas flights restricted Overseas flights returning to Canada will also be restricted to a small number of airports in the country.Canada’s House of Commons voted to shut down for at least five weeks to help ensure lawmakers do not contribute to the spread of the virus.The moves came a day after Trudeau’s wife tested positive. The prime minister himself has been in self-imposed quarantine.All parties in Parliament agreed to the suspension, which means lawmakers will miss two weeks of sessions since they had previously planned to be away next week and two weeks in April. The House is scheduled to next meet on Monday, April 20.“This just shows you how seriously our government and members of the house are taking this,” Government House leader Pablo Rodriguez said.Part of the deal for closing Parliament for five weeks was ratifying the new North American Free Trade Agreement. Rodriguez said lawmakers have passed legislation to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and the Senate is expected to follow suit later Friday.Presentation of federal budget delayedThe suspension of the House of Commons means the federal budget won’t be presented March 30 as Finance Minister Bill Morneau had promised. Rodriguez said the federal budget will be announced at a later date.Trudeau was quarantining himself at home because his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, tested positive for the new coronavirus after returning from Britain. He said Friday his wife has mild flu-like symptoms but is doing fine. He said neither he nor their three children are showing symptoms.“She’s getting lots of rest and drinking lots of fluids and we’re paying very close attention to what the medical professionals are saying,” Trudeau said to the CBC.“I am feeling fine, no symptoms. The kids are all fine, happy to being staying home from school. We’re doing well.”Speaks with TrumpTrudeau was spending the day in briefings, phone calls and virtual meetings from home, including speaking with other world leaders and joining a special Cabinet committee discussion on the coronavirus. Trudeau spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday.But Trudeau did cancel an in-person meeting with Canada’s provincial premiers.The prime minister planned to address the nation later Friday, according to his office.Trudeau himself had not been tested because he was not showing symptoms, his office said. The doctor’s advice to the prime minister is to continue daily activities while self-monitoring.Trudeau said his government will likely recommend that Canadians avoid travel outside the country except for essential purposes.“We are going to be able to get through this if everyone is going to follow the advice of our medical professionals and experts,” Trudeau said to CBC. 
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Amid stalls of vegetables and cheap clothes, party faithful push campaign flyers at Saint-Denis’ weekly market near the French capital under scudding clouds. Some shoppers brush past, unconvinced by the political offers. Others accept the colorful manifestos, stuffing them between bags of cassavas and oranges. Located a few miles outside Paris, this gritty suburb is the ultimate French melting pot, boasting no fewer than 140 different nationalities. Ahead of the first round of French municipal elections Sunday — still on track, despite the coronavirus outbreak — bread-and-butter issues like fighting crime and increasing affordable housing rank high.A flyer advertising the candidacy of Socialist Mathieu Hanotin, who wants to expand green spaces if elected. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)But like elsewhere in France, green issues also dominate candidate platforms, powered by voter concerns about climate change, pesticides and pollution. Analysts speculate France’s Greens party could capture a number of towns, large and small. Perhaps more strikingly, however, the Greens no longer have the lock on environmental issues.   “We’re seeing the environment capturing a growing place in candidates’ platforms, regardless of their political beliefs,” said Maud Lelievre, spokeswoman for Les Eco Maires, a network of 1,800 environmentally minded communes in France. “It’s no longer a marginal issue,” Lelievre said. “It takes up pages of their platforms — issues like animal welfare, greening cities, local produce and transport. These were issues traditionally reserved for really environmental parties.”  Even in towns like Saint-Denis, with historically high abstention rates, the green vote may dominate, Lelievre said, partly because residents with strong convictions tend to be the ones heading to the polls.   A mixed political choiceAt City Hall, Mayor Laurent Russier lists priorities, from making neighborhoods clean and secure to ensuring the town’s poorest residents will not be squeezed out by wealthier transplants from Paris.   Saint-Denis Mayor Laurent Russier, whose agenda includes expanding bike lanes and eco-friendly buildings. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)As a communist, Russier fits a once-common profile for working-class French suburbs like this one. Yet his ticket offers a 21st-century twist — Greens party members — and he also describes plans to expand bike lanes and mass transport and build more low-emission buildings.   “If we want to have a real environmental transition, all our residents need to be part of it,” Russier said. “Those who are more fragile and those better off.” At the Saint-Denis market, Russier’s rivals are sounding similar messages.   “The majority of French and people living in Saint-Denis don’t vote for green parties,” although green issues are important to them, said Alexandre Aidara, running for mayor on the governing La Republique en Marche (LREM) ticket. “And they know you can be LREM and have a very good green program.” A few blocks away, Socialist Party candidate Mathieu Hanotin described how Saint-Denis sweltered in last summer’s heat wave, which he attributed to climate change.“We want to bring in new ambition on issues like soil degradation and greening public spaces,” he said.   For long-term resident Marion Tisserand, a mother of three, their arguments translated into a difficult choice. “It’s a very mixed picture among the candidates,” she said. “I have a tendency to vote green in elections, but I don’t know yet whom to go for.” Battling over the green labelCountrywide, France’s trademark Greens party hopes to consolidate its strong showing during last year’s European Parliament elections that were echoed elsewhere in Europe. Just one major French city, Grenoble, currently has a Greens party mayor. Now several other municipalities may be up for grabs during these local elections, including Bordeaux, Rouen, Strasbourg and Marseille.   Maud Lelievre of Eco Maires says environmental issues have been mainstreamed into party platforms in France. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Lelievre, of Eco Maires, said the Greens may fare well in this first round of voting, but less so in the second round, scheduled for March 22.   “But in big towns with young, well-educated voters, there’s a chance of environmentalists coming ahead” in the second as well, she said. Yet like Saint-Denis, other municipalities are seeing a partisan battle for the green mantle. That’s the case in Paris, where Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo has built kilometers of bike lanes, has established car-free days and spaces, and has promised to expand plans to create more “urban jungles” of plants.   She has earned the ire of drivers, even as other critics claim she has covered stretches of Paris in cement as well as in trees.   “Hidalgo is ecology in small steps,” David Belliard, her Greens  party rival, said.   Yet Hidalgo remains the front-runner; Belliard ranks fourth.
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The world may be shutting down but there’s still time for music in Italy, even if the concert halls are closed.Across Italy, from the Tuscan town of Siena to the southern city of Naples, Italians are refusing to be silenced. Overnight, neighbors started singing together, leaning out through open windows or standing on their balconies — a collective act of civic solidarity and coronavirus defiance.In Siena they started singing a traditional Tuscan folk song, Il Canto della Verbena (And While Siena Sleeps), one of the town’s most cherished melodies and sung since the Middle Ages. The back-and-forth choruses echoed down the narrow, deserted street of the medieval town. “Long live Siena, the most beautiful of cities.”A video posted on social media of the singing went viral, with many on Twitter saluting the singing as a “beautiful” act of humanity.“People of my hometown Siena sing a popular song from their houses along an empty street to warm their hearts during the Italian COVID-19 lockdown,” wrote one person on Twitter.A resident uses pot lids to play cymbals as she takes part in a music flash mob called “Look out from the window, Rome mine!” The event sought to liven up the city’s silence during the coronavirus lockdown, March 13, 2020.Others said that despite being separated in their homes, Italians were showing they remained together. Siena’s singing prompted other towns to follow. In Naples, quarantined Italians in apartment blocks in the Casoria district of the city joined in singing in defiance of the deadly disease sweeping the country.  In one video they can be heard singing the local soccer chant: “People like us will never give up; people like us will never give up; people like us; people like us; people like us will never give up. Come on Italy! Come on Naples! Forever!”Naples escaped the first waves of coronavirus cases, documenting just 95 infections so far, but as with the rest of Italy, Neapolitans are locked down on a “stay-at-home” rule imposed by the Italian government to try to retard the spread of COVID-19. As of Thursday, Siena had 29 confirmed cases, according to the country’s Civil Protection Agency.Italy’s death toll rose above 1,260 Friday, with more than 17,660 confirmed cases. The epicenters were still mainly in the north of the country, in the regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. Siena had 41 confirmed cases, and Naples had 140.The singing came soon after the country’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio praised Italians for observing the national lockdown, which tightly restricts people’s movements.All shops, aside from food stores and pharmacies, and all schools are shuttered.He told broadcasters: “Our grandfathers were drafted to go to war; we’re being asked to stay at home. … If a doctor and a nurse can work for 24 hours nonstop, we can give up leaving our own home. The huge majority of citizens are respecting the rules.”A man plays guitar as part of a flashmob organized to raise morale during Italy’s coronavirus crisis in Turin, Italy, March 13, 2020.Italian officials say the effectiveness of the national quarantine will depend on two crucial factors — the willingness of Italians to comply with the rules and how long the lockdown can be sustained in the face of mounting economic and social costs. Privately, they acknowledge there are risks of civil unrest, if the shutdown has to be prolonged and doesn’t start showing benefits within the next two weeks in terms of a decline in the rate of infections.Italy has followed the lockdown approach China adopted to quell the spread of COVID-19 in Hubei province, the origin of the virus. Other European countries have started to ramp up to varying degrees their efforts to slow the disease but have not been as radical as Italy, Europe’s coronavirus epicenter, and have opted for more modest restrictions.A man plays accordion as he looks out of an apartment window as part of a flashmob organized to raise morale during Italy’s coronavirus crisis in Rome, March 13, 2020.Like Italy, several countries, including France, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Ireland, have closed schools and universities and banned large gatherings. They are poised to follow Italy’s lockdown example, their officials say, if the rise in cases in their countries can’t be slowed, fearing otherwise huge spikes in infections will overwhelm their hospitals and lead to more deaths.The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that Europe had now become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.Officials elsewhere in Europe have taken note that in a matter of two weeks, the explosion of cases in Lombardy, one of the wealthiest regions in Italy, exhausted the hospitals there. Lombardy boasts one of the most efficient and well-funded health care systems not just in Italy, but also in Europe. This week, the region’s health care coordinators admitted to reporters that Lombardy’s hospitals were “one step from collapse.”Other officials have been warning that doctors and nurses are close to burnout after working around the clock for weeks.Britain has remained an outlier and has held back from introducing the more restrictive measures being seen on mainland Europe.The number of confirmed cases in the the country reached 590 Thursday — up by 134 in 24 hours. But the British government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, has admitted publicly the actual number of people infected at the moment could be between 5,000 and 10,000.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference to give the government’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at Downing Street in London, March 12, 2020.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday confirmed the government was entering the second phase of its response to COVID-19 — moving from trying to contain the virus to retarding its spread. But Johnson has declined so far to close schools and universities or ban large gatherings.Opposition parties and some from Johnson’s own ruling Conservative Party have questioned why Britain is out of line with many other countries where schools have been closed and cities placed on lockdown. They also have called for independent scientists to be able to scrutinize the data that have led Downing Street to proceed more slowly.Gordon Brown, a former prime minister, said Friday that “fears are still growing for our safety; for all the brilliance of Britain’s medics, the government still seems behind the curve.”Vallance told Britain’s Sky News that Downing Street was moving more slowly than other governments because Britain was “a little bit behind” where the coronavirus outbreak is in other European states. He said Britain had managed to slow the rate of infection because of early action in tracing and isolating those infected.“What we don’t want to do is to get into knee-jerk reactions where you have to start doing measures at the wrong pace because something’s happened,” Vallance added.
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Spain will be in a state of emergency for the next 15 days to better combat the coronavirus, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday, in a dramatic increase to the policy response that will allow authorities to confine people and ration goods.The state of emergency, which Sanchez said will formally be decided by a cabinet meeting on Saturday, will give the government power to take wide ranging measures including temporarily occupying factories or any other premises except private homes.”The government of Spain will protect all its citizens and will guarantee the right life conditions to slow the pandemic with as little inconvenience as possible,” Sanchez said. He did not spell out what specific measures the government will take.A tourist records with her mobile phone the landmark Sagrada Familia basilica, which stopped receiving visitors due to the coronavirus outbreak in Barcelona, Spain, March 13, 2020.Schools have already shut down across the country, with many cinemas, theaters or playgrounds also closing and trials suspended in several regions as normal life came to a halt in the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy.Spain has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe after Italy. The current Spanish tally stands at 4,209, up by about 1,000 cases from Thursday and seven times as much as on Sunday. About 120 people have died.Sanchez said the number of cases in Spain could jump to over 10,000 as early as next week but added he was confident the country would defeat the virus, urging all citizens to do their part.”Heroism is also washing your hands and staying home,” he said, referring to health advice to slow the propagation of the coronavirus.Catalonia, Spain’s second-richest region, ordered on Friday the closure of shopping centers with the exception of those selling food or essential goods, as well as gyms and nightclubs, a senior official said.The Madrid region — Spain’s wealthiest — has also decided to close restaurants, bars and shops from Saturday, media including Efe news agency said, with only supermarkets and pharmacies allowed to remain open. Authorities could not yet confirm this.
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France is shutting schools nationwide, among other coronavirus measures. But municipal elections taking place over the next two Sundays are going forward. Analyst predict a so-called ‘green wave’ of ecologically minded candidates may surge in the polls – powered by a raft of alarming environmental developments. Lisa Bryant reports from the working-class town of Saint-Denis, outside Paris.
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