RIYADMEDIA

British Prime Minster Boris Johnson remains in a central London hospital under observation, having been admitted there on the advice of doctors Sunday night. He was hospitalized on precautionary grounds for further tests as his symptoms had not improved. Johnson was diagnosed with the coronavirus eleven days ago. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the shock announcement overshadowed Queen Elizabeth’s rare televised address to the nation
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A Slovak court on Monday sentenced former soldier Miroslav Marcek to 23 years in prison for shooting and killing investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova in February 2018.
 
Marcek, 37, who was not present at the sentencing, had admitted guilt in the case, which led to nationwide protests and eventually brought down the Slovak government.
 
“It was cold-blooded and malicious. Victims did not have a chance to defend themselves,” presiding judge Ruzena Szabova of the Specialised Criminal Court said at the hearing in Pezinok, north of Bratislava. “His confession was a mitigating circumstance.”
 
Prosecutor Juraj Novocky, who asked for a 25-year sentence, appealed against the sentence.
 
Kuciak had covered corruption and the links of influential businessmen to political, judicial and police leaders.
 
Businessman Marian Kocner, who was a target of Kuciak’s reporting, is standing trial with two others in separate hearings on charges of procuring the murder. 
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Mexico’s President said there will not be a big economic stimulus package related to the coronavirus pandemic, although the country is facing a crisis unlike anything before. Andrés Manuel López Obrador struck an optimistic tone Sunday, uncommon elsewhere nowadays, as the COVID-19 has drastically slowed the economy around the world. “This crisis is temporary, transitory and will soon return to normal. We will defeat the coronavirus, we will revive the economy and Mexico will continue to stand up and show the world its glory and greatness,” Obrador said.    Mexico’s economy has already been in recession. Last week, Mexico’s Treasury said the country’s economy would contract up to 3.9% in 2020 because of the coronavirus. Private analysts have predicted a deeper dive. Thursday, Bank of America said that Mexico’s GDP could contract 8% this year.Mexico is a close economic partner of the United States and it is expected to have directly or indirectly some benefit from the $2 trillion stimulus package approved by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. As of Sunday, Mexico had confirmed 94 deaths related to the coronavirus and over 2,100 infections. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who last week tested positive for coronavirus, remained hospitalized Monday after being admitted for additional testing after having a persistent high fever. His office called the development “precautionary” and said he remained in charge of the government. Britain has emerged as one of the latest hot spots in the pandemic, reporting more than 600 deaths Sunday. Other parts of Europe showed some improvement after weeks of devastating impacts from the virus that have caused governments to put residents on lockdown to try to slow its spread. Italy, which has the most deaths, reported its smallest increase in two weeks, while Spain also reported its latest in a string of lower daily death and new infection counts. In the United States, the western states of Oregon and Washington said they will send thousands of badly needed ventilators across the country to New York, the hardest-hit area in the country.A ventilator is displayed during a news conference on March 24, 2020 at the New York City Emergency Management Warehouse, where 400 ventilators have arrived and will be distributed.About one-third of 9,600 people who have died from the coronavirus in the United States have been in New York City, where makeshift field hospitals and a U.S. Navy medical ship are trying to take some of the strain off the city’s health care system. Other parts of the country are emerging as concerns with mounting case numbers, including Pennsylvania, Colorado and the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, where about 1,000 cases have been confirmed. South Korea, one of the first hot spots in the outbreak, reported just 47 new cases Monday, but the country’s vice health minister cautioned the need for continued vigilance and for people to stay home to prevent an infection “explosion.” Kim Gang-lip said data from smartphones showed too many people were going out to restaurants and parks in recent weeks. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging governments to take steps to protect women after a “horrifying” increase in domestic violence during the outbreak. 
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Two forest fires near the now defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine have boosted the radiation level in the area. Ukrainian firefighters worked into Sunday night to put the fires under control. Emergency services said one of the fires that spread to an area of about five hectares was contained. The other fire was covering a much larger area, of about 20 hectares. Fire officials said radiation levels in the area near Chernobyl were considerably higher than normal.  The emergencies service, however, said radiation levels in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, about 100 kilometers south, were within normal range. The fires were within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone established after the 1986 explosion at the plant, an area of 2600 square kilometers which was largely evacuated because of radioactive contamination. Since than about 200 people have remained in the area, disregarding orders to leave.  
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The U.N. secretary-general warned Sunday that the increase in social and economic pressures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has led to a global increase in violence against women and girls.   Last week, Antonio Guterres called for a global cease-fire so that the international community could focus all of its attention on stopping the virus and helping those who have contracted it. “But violence is not confined to the battlefield,” he said in a statement Sunday evening. “For many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest – in their own homes. And so I make a new appeal today for peace at home — and in homes — around the world.” Many countries have reported a surge in domestic violence incidents and calls to abuse hotlines since the pandemic started spreading globally earlier this year. In France, domestic violence rates surged by a third in one week. In South Africa, authorities received nearly 90,000 reports of violence against women in the first week of its lockdown. Australia’s government says online searches for support on domestic violence have risen 75%, while in Turkey, activists are demanding greater protections after the killing of women rose sharply after a stay at home order was issued March 11. Badges showing an emergency phone number created to fight domestic violence are pictured, Sept. 3, 2019, at the hotel Matignon, the French prime minister’s official residence in Paris, at the outset of a multiparty debate on domestic violence.Entire countries have called for quarantines and lockdowns to slow the spread of the respiratory virus that has sickened more than 1.25 million people worldwide and killed nearly 70,000. These stay at home orders mean many women and girls are stuck in crowded homes with men who have lost their jobs or have no outlet for their frustrations, such as watching sports or meeting friends at a local bar, and are instead taking them on out on them. At the same time, authorities, such as police, are overwhelmed with their coronavirus response, and civil society groups are struggling to maintain staff and resources. In some cities, domestic violence shelters have been commandeered as health centers. “I urge all governments to make the prevention and redress of violence against women a key part of their national response plans for COVID-19,” Guterres said of the disease caused by the coronavirus. He said that includes declaring shelters as essential services, setting up emergency warning systems in pharmacies and grocery stores, declaring shelters essential services, and creating safe ways for women to seek support, without alerting their abusers. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was diagnosed with the new coronavirus more than a week ago, was admitted to a hospital Sunday for tests.  Johnson’s office said he was hospitalized because he still has symptoms 10 days after testing positive for the virus. His admission to an undisclosed hospital in London wasn’t an emergency.Downing St. said it was a “precautionary step” and Johnson remains in charge of the government.Johnson, 55, has been quarantined in his Downing St. residence since being diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26.Johnson has continued to chair daily meetings on Britain’s response to the outbreak, and has released several video messages during his 10 days in isolation.In a message on Friday, he said he was feeling better but still had a fever.The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most people, but for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death.Johnson has received medical advice by phone during his illness, but going to a hospital means doctors can see him in person.Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds, 32, revealed Saturday that she spent a week with coronavirus symptoms, though she wasn’t tested. Symonds, who is pregnant, said she was now “on the mend.”The government said Sunday that almost 48,000 people have been confirmed to have COVID-19 in the U.K., and 4,934 have died.Johnson replaced Theresa May as prime minister in July and won a resounding election victory in December on a promise to complete Britain’s exit from the European Union. But Brexit has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.Johnson’s government was slower than those in some European countries to impose restrictions on daily life in response to the pandemic, but Britain has been effectively in lockdown since March 23.Several other members of Johnson’s government have also tested positive for the virus, including Health Secretary Matt Hancock and junior Health Minister Nadine Dorries. Both have recovered.News of Johnson’s admission to hospital came an hour after Queen Elizabeth II made a rare televised address to the nation, urging Britons to remain “united and resolute” in the fight against the virus.Drawing parallels to the struggle of World War II, the 93-year-old queen said that “while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”
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Queen Elizabeth II urged Britons to “rise to the challenge” of the coronavirus pandemic in a rare address to the nation Sunday night.“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,’’ she said, speaking from her residence in Windsor.The Queen thanked workers at the National Health Service as well as those continuing to work essential jobs.“Every hour of your hard work brings us closer to a return to normal times,” the Queen said, going on to add her thanks for every Briton who is staying at home.“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge,” she said.The Queen left London to stay in the Windsor castle as the COVID-19 pandemic affects Britain.Her son, Prince Charles, has been diagnosed with a mild case of the virus.Queen Elizabeth II records an annual Christmas message to Britain, but very rarely addresses the country in Sunday’s fashion. Other instances of such an address by the 93-year-old monarch include one before the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997 and after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002.
 
“While we have faced challenges before, this one is different,” the Queen said, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly all nations around the globe.The United Kingdom has recorded more than 48,000 cases of COVID-19 and nearly 5,000 resulting deaths. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested positive for the virus last week and is isolating at home.
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Soccer players in Spain on Sunday criticized the Spanish league’s decision to ask clubs to put the footballers on government furloughs during the coronavirus crisis.The league on Friday said the furloughs were needed because there was no agreement on the size of the salary cuts players must take to reduce the financial impact of the pandemic.”It is strange that the Liga supports [the furloughs],” Spain’s players’ association said in a statement.It said the league should have created a financial cushion for this period considering it always boasted about its “economic control measures” and the “well-balanced economy” of the Spanish clubs. The association said it also should be taken into account that the league has been temporarily suspended and not yet canceled.The league and the players’ association have been in talks to try to find ways to mitigate losses that could reach nearly 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion) if the season cannot be restarted because of the pandemic.The players said they agree with a salary reduction to help the clubs during the crisis, but not to the extent the league wants, which could amount to nearly half of the total losses if the competition is not resumed.Players said they want to keep negotiating directly with the clubs instead of being forced into furloughs.”The clubs and the players have been reaching agreements regarding the salaries,” the players’ association said. “What footballers are not going to do is relinquish labor rights.”Barcelona and Atlético Madrid are among the Spanish clubs requesting furloughs, but both directly negotiated the amount of the salary reduction with players — 70% in both cases. Both clubs and their players are contributing to guarantee the wages of non-playing employees being furloughed.The government furloughs help reduce the clubs’ labor costs while also guaranteeing players their jobs once the crisis is over.Spain has more than 130,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with nearly 12,500 deaths. The nation is expected to remain in a lockdown until April 26.There is no timetable for the return of the Spanish league.Players maintained their position to only resume competing when health authorities deem it safe for everyone’s heath, a view also shared by the Spanish league.The league has suggested it will recommend teams start mini-camp while the lockdown is still in place, if it’s possible to do so within the restrictions imposed by authorities.
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Emergency authorities in Ukraine say there are no signs of any fire still burning in the uninhabited exclusion zone around the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant after firefighters mobilized to put out a blaze.The country’s State Emergency Service said early on Sunday that background radiation levels were “within normal limits.”More than 130 firefighters, three aircraft, and 21 vehicles were deployed on April 4 to battle the fire, which was said to have burned around 20 hectares (50 acres) in the long-vacated area near where an explosion at a Soviet nuclear plant in 1986 sent a plume of radioactive fallout high into the air and across swaths of Europe.Fire and safety crews were said to be inspecting the area overnight on April 4-5 to eliminate any threat from sites where there was still smoldering.The blaze required seven airdrops of water, officials said.The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said that “as of April 5, 7:00 a.m., there was no open fire, only some isolated cells smoldering.”It said firefighters hadn’t seen any flames since around 8:00 p.m. on April 4.Officials had earlier shared images taken from an aircraft of white smoke blanketing the area, where it said firefighting was complicated by “an increased radiation background in individual areas of combustion.”There was no threat to settlements, the State Emergency Service said.A number of regions of Ukraine this week have reported brushfires amid unseasonably dry conditions.Fires are a routine threat in the forested region around the exclusion zone where an explosion 33 years ago ripped a roof off the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the now-abandoned town of Pripyat.The 1986 explosion sent a cloud of radioactive material high into the air above then-Soviet Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, as well as across Europe as Soviet officials denied there had been any accidents.Dozens of people in Ukraine died in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, and thousands more have since died from its effects, mainly exposure to radiation.A second massive protective shelter over the contaminated reactor was completed in 2016 in hopes of preventing further radiation leaks and setting the stage for the eventual dismantling of the structure.
 
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“It’s only been 30 days since our first case,” battle-fatigued New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday about the COVID-19 outbreak that has invaded his state.  “It feels like an entire lifetime.”New York is the U.S. state hardest hit by the coronavirus, where it has claimed more than 3,500 lives.  Public health experts say the situation is about to get worse, not only for New York, but for the rest of the United States as well.While Cuomo said the state is about seven days away from its apex of the health crisis, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Saturday that the U.S. would soon face its hardest two weeks with the virus.“There’s going to be a lot of death,” Trump said.U.S. hospitals have been fighting the coronavirus battle with a woefully inadequate arsenal.  Hospitals have been pleading for ventilators for their patients and the protective gear that doctors and other medical workers wear to prevent passing the disease back and forth between themselves and their patients.New York received a shipment of 1,000 ventilators Saturday from China.  “This is a big deal and it’s going to make a significant difference for us,” Cuomo said.Cuomo also said 85,000 volunteers are helping New York combat the virus and that he will sign an executive order allowing medical students slated to graduate this spring to graduate early and start practicing.A medic of the Elmhurst Hospital Center medical team reacts after stepping outside of the emergency room on April 4, 2020, in the Queens borough of New York.Some states have been at odds with the White House because the Trump administration has not mounted a unified approach to combatting the virus, leaving each state to craft its own strategy to find medical equipment and drugs to fight the deadly virus.The Washington Post reported the White House got its first official notification of the outbreak in China on January 3, but it took the administration 70 days to treat the outbreak as the deadly pandemic it has become.The global tally of confirmed cases has climbed to more than 1.2 million and almost 65,000 deaths.Spain, with more than 126,000 cases and almost 12,000 deaths, plans to extend its nationwide lockdown by 15 more days, until April 26. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday he would ask parliament to extend lockdown measures for the second time after first extending them to April 11.Italy, the second-hardest-hit European country after Spain, has had more than 11,000 of its medical workers infected by COVID-19, according to its National Institutes of Health and an association of physicians. The groups said about 73 physicians have died from the virus. Infections among medical personnel amount to nearly 10 percent of all infections in Italy.Carabinieri military police patrol Saint Peter’s square at the Vatican April 5, 2020, before Pope Francis leads Palm Sunday Mass without public participation due to the spread of coronavirus disease.Britain’s Ministry of Justice said Saturday that thousands of prisoners would be released within weeks as part of its broader campaign to contain the spread of the virus. Britain reported 708 deaths overnight, boosting the country’s death toll to more than 4,300. The ministry said the inmates would be electronically monitored to ensure they remain at home and could be returned to prison “at the first sign of concern.”France’s military has begun moving patients to hospitals across the country in an effort to contain the coronavirus’s spread in the hard-hit area in and around Paris. Military planes, helicopters and trains are transporting patients to less-affected areas in western France. More than 7,500 deaths and 90,000 infections have been reported in France.China observed a national moment of mourning for three minutes Saturday morning, as flags flew at half-staff and air sirens sounded to remember COVID-19 victims and the “martyrs” or front-line medical workers who died in the Asian nation’s fight to save the sick.The coronavirus first emerged late last year in China’s Hubei province, killing more than 3,300 people.       
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For Pope Francis at the Vatican, and for Christians worldwide from churches large and small, this will be an Easter like none other: The joyous message of Jesus Christ’s resurrection will be delivered to empty pews.Worries about the coronavirus outbreak have triggered widespread cancellations of Holy Week processions and in-person services. Many pastors will preach on TV or online, tailoring sermons to account for the pandemic. Many extended families will reunite via Face Time and Zoom rather than around a communal table laden with an Easter feast on April 12.”I’ll miss Mass and the procession,” said Aida Franco, 86, a retired teacher from Quito, Ecuador. “But God knows better.”Pope Francis, the first pontiff from Latin America, will be celebrating Mass for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Easter in a near-empty St. Peter’s Basilica, instead of in the huge square outside filled with Catholic faithful.In the pope’s native Argentina, the archbishopric of La Plata encouraged the faithful to use any type of plant at home for a “virtual” blessing that will be livestreamed during Palm Sunday services this weekend.The pandemic has prompted cancellation of a renowned annual tradition of sawdust and handmade flower carpets coating the streets of Antigua, a colonial Guatemalan city, during its Holy Week procession. Instead, some residents will make smaller carpets to display outside their homes.”We know this is happening because of some message from God,” said Cesar Alvarez, who has been making the multicolored carpets with his family for 28 years. “But we’re taking it with a lot of sadness.”A leaflet listing Holy Week activities sits among empty pews during a live-streamed mass at the St. Augustine Church & Catholic Student Center, March 29, 2020, in Coral Gables, Fla.In some communities, there are innovative efforts to boost Eastertime morale.At Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kansas, family ministries director Heather Jackson is organizing an Easter egg hunt that embraces social distancing. Parents and children are creating colorful images of Easter eggs to display in windows or on garage doors, and the “hunt” will entail families driving around in their cars, or strolling on foot, trying to spot as many eggs as possible.”It’s about keeping people safe while maintaining that sense of joy,” Jackson said. “It will be a difficult time, because it’s a time for families to come together and right now we just can’t do that.”If not for the virus, 32-year-old Chris Burton — a writer, teacher and devout Baptist in Brooklyn, New York — would be planning a trip to Maryland for Easter dinner with his family.Instead, he plans to watch the online service of his church, Trinity Baptist, and then catch up with relatives by phone.Burton, who has experienced five bouts of pneumonia since 2011, has blogged about the need to shelter in place. Yet he still hopes this Easter will rekindle the uplifting emotions he’s cherished since wearing his Easter suit in childhood.”All that’s happening doesn’t mean we need to be somber,” he said.In Venezuela, Catholic officials said that after the Holy Week liturgies, some priests would try to take the Blessed Sacrament — the wine and bread of Holy Communion — on a vehicle and, using loudspeakers, invite congregants to join in spirit from their windows and balconies.A similar used of priest-carrying vehicles was proposed in the Philippines, Asia’s bastion of Catholicism.In Brazil, the world’s biggest Catholic country, Rio de Janeiro’s huge Christ the Redeemer statue has been closed indefinitely. Large Holy Week gatherings are banned in several states after a federal court overruled a decree by President Jair Bolsonaro exempting religious services from quarantine measures.Many faithful across Latin America say they’ll miss Holy Week’s observances, yet there is acceptance of the cancellations.The owners of a house known for their seasonal decorations have put up a display combining Easter and coronavirus-related social distancing measures in their yard, seen April 1, 2020, in Washington, D.C.”It’s sad because we can’t be with our Lord in his Calvary, but it’s fine,” said Felipe Navarrete of Santiago, Chile. “The health of the population comes first, and we have to be responsible with older people who join these rituals the most.”Many pastors are pondering their upcoming Easter sermons, including the Rev. Steven Paulikas of All Saints Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. His sermon will be transmitted online but delivered in an empty church.”It’s started me thinking about the empty tomb,” he said, referring to the biblical account of Christ’s resurrection after his crucifixion.”That emptiness was actually the first symbol of this new life,” Paulikas said.On the evening of April 9 — Holy Thursday commemorating the Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles — Paulikas is organizing a communal supper for his congregation, hoping members will join via Face Time.At St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Brunswick, Ohio, Father Bob Stec also is organizing a pre-Easter initiative, arranging for each of the parish’s 5,500 families to get a friendly call from another member.He’s expecting upwards of 20,000 people to watch the online Easter service.”We’re going to try to flood their senses visually and audibly with the sounds and images that will give them hope,” he said.Stec knows the key point of his own message.”This is one of those wake-up calls,” he said. “We’re more aware than ever how desperately we need God in our lives.”In Atlanta, an Easter message for Emory University is being prepared by Robert Franklin, a professor at Emory’s Candler School of Theology.”The first Easter with its joyful surprise emerged out of suffering, fear, suspicion, death, sorrow and grief,” Franklin writes. “Easter in the time of COVID-19 is closer existentially to that first Easter than to our customary cultural festivals of self-indulgence and triumphalism.”  
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A gang battle in Mexico has left at least 19 people dead in the northern state of Chihuahua, officials said Saturday.At least five armed clashes have occurred in the Madera community so far this year, local authorities have said.”The state attorney general, in conjunction with the public safety office and Mexican army, launched an operation to investigate and locate armed groups that staged a confrontation that left 19 people dead yesterday in the town of Madera,” authorities said.According to early reports, the bloodshed occurred Friday evening when alleged hitmen of the Gente Nueva group, part of the Sinaloa Cartel, were driving on a dirt road in Madera.There they were ambushed by men from the opposing group La Linea, part of the Juarez Cartel.Responding authorities seized 18 long firearms, one short, two vehicles and two grenades at the site of the clash.The Mexican government has blamed the La Linea cartel for the massacre of nine Mexican American Mormons last November when they were traveling on a rural road between the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, which borders the United States.
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A Sudanese refugee went on a knife rampage in a town in southeastern France on Saturday, killing two people in what was being treated as a terrorist attack.The attack in broad daylight, which President Emmanuel Macron called “an odious act,” took place with the country on lockdown in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus.Counterterrorism prosecutors launched an investigation into “murder linked to a terrorist enterprise” after the rampage in a string of shops in Romans-sur-Isere, a riverside town of 35,000.The assailant, identified only as Abdallah A.-O., a refugee in his 30s from Sudan who lives in the town, was arrested without a fight by police.”He was found on his knees on the pavement, praying in Arabic,” the prosecutor’s office said.According to witnesses cited by local radio station France Bleu Drome Ardeche, he shouted “Allah Akbar!” (God is greatest) as he stabbed his victims.”Anyone who had the misfortune to find themselves in his way were attacked,” town Mayor Marie-Helene Thoraval told AFP.David Olivier Reverdy, from the National Police Alliance union, said the assailant had called on police to kill him when they came to arrest him.’Jumped over the counter’The suspect first went into a tobacco shop, where he attacked the owner and his wife, Thoraval said.He then went into a butcher’s shop, where he seized another knife before heading to the town center and attacking people in the street outside a bakery.”He took a knife, jumped over the counter, and stabbed a customer, then ran away,” the butcher’s shop owner, Ludovic Breyton, told AFP. “My wife tried to help the victim but in vain.”Interior Minister Cristophe Castaner, who visited the scene, said two people were killed and five others injured.”This morning, a man embarked on a terrorist journey,” he said.The initial investigation has “brought to light a determined, murderous course likely to seriously disturb public order through intimidation or terror,” according to the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office (PNAT).It said that during a search of the suspect’s home, “handwritten documents with religious connotations were found in which the author complains in particular that he lives in a country of nonbelievers.”The suspect, who obtained refugee status in 2017, was not known to police or intelligence services in France or Europe, PNAT said.Macron denounced the attack in a statement on Twitter.”All the light will be shed on this odious act which casts a shadow over our country, which has already been hit hard in recent weeks,” he said.France is in its third week of a national lockdown over COVID-19, with all but essential businesses ordered to shut and people told to stay at home.The country has been on terror alert since a wave of deadly jihadist bombings and shootings in Paris in 2015. In all, 258 people have been killed in France in what have been deemed terrorist attacks.
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Prosecutors say a man wielding a knife has attacked residents venturing out to shop in a town under lockdown south of the French city of Lyon. Two people were killed and others wounded. The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press the attack took place at 11 a.m. in a commercial street in Romans-sur-Isere. The alleged attacker was arrested by police nearby. Prosecutors did not identify him. They said he had no documents but claimed to be Sudanese and to have been born in 1987. Prosecutors couldn’t confirm French media reports that there were several other casualties, of whom three are in critical condition. They have not yet determined whether the attack was terror-related.Prosecutors said that other people were also wounded but couldn’t confirm French media reports that there were seven other casualties, of whom three are in critical condition.They also did not confirm reports that the man had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is great) as he carried out the attack.The office said it is evaluating whether the attack was motivated by terrorism, but that it has not launched any formal proceedings to treat it as such.Like the rest of France, the town’s residents are on coronavirus-linked lockdown. The victims were carrying out their weekend food shopping on the street that has bakeries and grocers, the office said. Two-meter distancing is being encouraged as in the rest of the country.Media reported that the knifeman first attacked a Romanian resident who had just left his home for his daily walk – slitting his throat in front of his girlfriend and son.Following that, they reported, the assailant entered a tobacco shop, stabbed the tobacconist and two customers, and then went into the local butcher’s shop. He grabbed another knife and attacked a client with the blunt end before entering a supermarket.Some shoppers took refuge in a nearby bakery.There have been a number of knife attacks in France in recent months. In January, French police shot and injured a man in Metz who was waving a knife and shouting “Allahu akbar.”Two days earlier, another man was shot dead by police after he stabbed one person fatally and wounded two others in a Paris suburb. 
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An Italian oncologist and his team are treating coronavirus patients at their homes, as intensive-care units at hospitals have reached capacity.The director of the oncology ward at Piacenza Hospital in the Emilia-Romagna region on the border with Italy’s hardest-hit Lombardy region, Luigi Cavanna, and head nurse Gabriele Cremona rushed to help patients fight the new COVID-19 during the early phase of the epidemic.Cavanna has been prescribing antiviral drugs and Hydroxychloroquine to patients with the new coronavirus symptoms.”This disease can be stopped, and its spread can be stopped, because if we give (patients) an anti-viral drug, which prevents the virus from replicating, not only we can prevent the person from becoming ill, but we can probably also prevent the disease from spreading,” Cavanna said.Cavana and his team have treated more than 100 patients at home and less than 10 percent of them had to be admitted to the hospital. The other 90 percent responded successfully to home treatment and have been recovering.“Just seeing us walking in, some of them, even in their suffering were almost moved, because they thought, ‘Someone is coming to see us’. Under our monster-like appearance (referring to protective gear) they could see human features, and the impact is moving. More than one person told us: ‘It will end the way it will end, but you’ve come and for me that’s already great.’ For a doctor, this means the world,” Cavanna said.The health authority in Emilia Romagna and its regional administration have supported what has become known as the “Piacenza model,” and other teams there are practicing it.Other Italian regions have shown interest in the strategy, which could be especially successful in areas less affected by the coronavirus epidemic. 
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As the coronavirus continues to spread in Haiti, some people are embracing traditional remedies as a way to prevent or cure the deadly virus. VOA talked to Haitians at an open-air market about what they believe can prevent them from being infected or perhaps even heal them.“They say there’s no cure for it, but we can eat limes and drink water with Clorox to stay alive,” a female street merchant told VOA.“I hear people say you should eat limes and eat certain leaves to stay healthy,” a male street merchant said.Haiti currently has 18 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with more than 400 people quarantined while they await test results, the public health ministry announced Friday.VOA Creole asked Pierre Hugues Saint-Jean, president of the national Association of Pharmacists, if there’s any validity to the traditional remedies being touted on the streets.“There actually has been a debate about the virtues of certain plants. Some people say ginger, others say limes, some people are talking about aloe,” Saint-Jean said. “Just because it’s a plant doesn’t mean it has no scientific validity. But you have to study the plant, isolate the active substances contained in the plant and then conduct (scientific) studies.”A flatbed truck travels on the streets of Port-au-Prince on April 3, 2020. The sign says “Coronavirus is lethal. Wash your hands, protect yourself.”Saint-Jean said this kind of in-depth study can determine what preventive attributes the plant may hold that perhaps later could be used to treat illnesses.Traditional cures are part of the Haitian culture and are widely used. Native tropical plants such as moringa, palma christi, verbena and aloe are routinely used to treat health ailments such as colds and flu. In fact, the health ministry has a special branch devoted to traditional medicine.“If we talk about lime as a cure, I can tell you that limes have a lot of positive attributes. Limes have an abundance of vitamin C, which helps to reinforce the immune system,” explained Cajuste Romel, vice president of the national pharmacists association.Some people are taking drugs such as chloroquine, sold on the streets of Port-au-Prince, as a preventative measure. Chloroquine (phosphate) is an effective antimalarial drug, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“Any pill I find being sold on the street (as a cure) I will buy it because I’ve got problems,” a customer at an open-air market told VOA.Saint-Jean said he understands why people believe the drug can cure them.“Laboratory tests on chloroquine had some positive results on malaria, and recent tests have shown that it does have a level of success against the coronavirus, that’s why researchers are studying,” he said.This street merchant, shown in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on April 3, 2020, believes eating limes and drinking water infused with Clorox will keep her healthy.As of now, there is no cure for the highly contagious COVID-19, although researchers have begun searching for one. Health experts say a vaccine will not be available in 2020.Romel told VOA that taking chloroquine preventatively is not a good idea.“Chloroquine cannot prevent you from being infected with the coronavirus,” he said.  As for adding Clorox (bleach) to water, the pharmacist advised caution.“Clorox is one of the best disinfectants that exist on Earth. It’s not only efficient but also accessible,” he told VOA. “But it worries me (to hear people are drinking it in water) because it’s also toxic. That’s why you have to be very careful about how much you are adding to the water you’re drinking.”Romel said he hopes the government will include the proper proportion of Clorox to water in its coronavirus public advisories.“Haitians think if they can smell the Clorox, then it’s more effective,” Romel noted. “The truth is the stronger the smell, the more toxic it is.”  
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All Americans should wear nonmedical masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, the U.S. government is recommending.The new guidelines, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amid the coronavirus pandemic, were announced Friday by President Donald Trump.Trump stressed the recommendation was voluntary and said he would not be following it.“You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it,” he told reporters.“Somehow, sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I just don’t see it,” Trump elaborated.Some lack symptomsThe U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, said donning the masks was, however, a good idea to try to prevent the virus from spreading, since many infected with it do not show any symptoms.“We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms,” he said. “This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity — for example, coughing, speaking or sneezing.”The president and other officials stressed that people should not use the medical-grade masks, which are in short supply and needed by first responders and health professionals.“The CDC is recommending that Americans wear a basic cloth or fabric mask that can be either purchased online or simply made at home,” Trump said.He also announced that he was invoking the Defense Production Act to halt the export of “scarce health and medical supplies by unscrupulous actors and profiteers.”“We need these items immediately for domestic use,” Trump said. “We have to have them.”FILE – Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on the coronavirus at Rideau Cottage, in Ottawa, Ontario, March 29, 2020.Canada, meanwhile, warned the Trump administration about halting the supply of masks to its neighbor and ally.“The level of integration between our economies goes both ways across the border,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday. “It would be a mistake to create blockages or reduce the amount of back-and-forth trade of essential goods and services, including medical goods, across our border. That is the point we’re making to the American administration right now.”Canada will “pull out all the stops” to prevent the United States from blocking the exports of some medical equipment, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said.Warning from 3MA major manufacturer of the N95 respirators was also upset about the Trump administration’s action.There are “significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to health care workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators,” 3M, a Minnesota-based multinational conglomerate, said in a statement Friday. “In addition, ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some have already done. If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease.””I don’t blame ‘em — they can push back if they want,” Trump said when asked by VOA about the company’s comment. “We’re not happy with 3M.”FILE – N95 respiration masks are seen at a 3M laboratory that has been contracted by the U.S. government to produce extra marks in response to the coronavirus outbreak, in Maplewood, Minnesota, March 4, 2020.The pandemic has yet to peak in the United States, amid an estimation by the White House that 100,000 to 240,000 people in the country could die of the new coronavirus  in the next couple of months, even if social distancing was strictly followed.The response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, said the numbers go could higher if there was another big outbreak in a major metropolitan area similar to the one in New York City.She noted officials were continuing to watch the situation in Detroit and Chicago and expressed new concern about the states of Colorado and Pennsylvania, as well as Washington, D.C.“The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die” in the United States, the president said. “I want much less than that. I want none. But it’s too late for that.”Biggest jumpNew York state registered its biggest single-day increase in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.He said 562 people had died of the virus in the last 24 hours, adding that there were more than 100,000 confirmed infections in the state.This is the “highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started,” he said Friday.Looking ahead, in the near term, Cuomo warned that more people were going to die in hospitals because of a lack of ventilators.New York is the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, the country with the most COVID-19 cases.  As of Friday, according to FILE – Patients wearing face masks and personal protective equipment wait on line for COVID-19 testing outside Elmhurst Hospital Center, March 27, 2020, in New York City.The economic health of the nation also is in jeopardy. Economists are forecasting the U.S. unemployment rate soon will surpass levels seen during the global financial crisis 12 years ago.A total of 701,000 jobs were lost last month, according to the U.S. Labor Department, but its data did not include those Americans who lost employment in the past two weeks and filed claims.”The devastating news in the March jobs report demands our next step be to go bigger and further assisting small business, to go longer in unemployment benefits and to provide additional direct payments,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement after the Friday release of the Labor Department number.“We must also provide the desperately needed resources for our hospitals, health systems, health workers and state and local governments on the front lines of this crisis,” she said.Hardships to increaseWhite House economic officials said they would not sugarcoat the damage that the pandemic was doing to the U.S. economy.“The whole pandemic and its consequences have come on exponentially faster” than anyone expected, Larry Kudlow, director of the U.S. National Economic Council, told reporters Friday at the White House. “Those numbers and those hardships are going to get worse before they get better.”Loans backed by the U.S. government began going out on Friday to small businesses so they could keep workers on their payrolls amid a widespread shutdown of the economy because of stay-at-home orders in a majority of states.The White House also announced Friday that anyone who is expected to be in close proximity to either the president or Vice President Mike Pence “will be administered a COVID-19 test to evaluate for pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers’ status to limit inadvertent transmission.”The tests were to be initiated on Friday. Journalists in the room for the coronavirus task force briefing were not tested, indicating that close proximity apparently means those who may come within a distance of a meter or two of Trump or Pence.
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Canada is warning the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump about halting the supply of masks needed by first responders in the international battle against the coronavirus.  
 
“The level of integration between our economies goes both ways across the border,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. “It would be a mistake to create blockages or reduce the amount of back-and-forth trade of essential goods and services, including medical goods across our border. That is the point we’re making to the American administration right now.”  
 
Canada will “pull out all the stops” to prevent the United States from blocking the exports of some medical equipment, said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.  
 
The Trump administration Thursday invoked the Defense Production Act to require 3M, a Minnesota-based multinational conglomerate, to prioritize orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for N95 respirators.  
 
There are “significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators,” the company said in a statement Friday. “In addition, ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some have already done. If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease.”FILE – N95 respiration masks are seen at a 3M laboratory that has been contracted by the U.S. government to produce extra marks in response to the coronavirus outbreak, in Maplewood, Minnesota, March 4, 2020.Asked by VOA about 3M’s response to the order, the director of the U.S. National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, indicated he had not yet read the letter but said “let me take a look at it.”  
 
Health care workers across the country continue to complain about a shortage of the protective equipment. The demand may surge even more in the coming days amid anticipation the Centers for Disease Control will recommend that Americans, especially in coronavirus hot spots, cover their mouths to prevent widening infections.  
 
Trump suggested Thursday people could put scarves on their faces instead of using conventional masks.  
 
The pandemic has yet to peak in the United States, amid an estimation by the White House that in the next couple of months as many as 240,000 people in the country could die of the new coronavirus.  
 
The state of New York has registered its biggest single-day increase in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations, according to its governor, Andrew Cuomo.  
 
In the last 24 hours, 562 people had died of the virus in New York, said Cuomo, announcing there are more than 100,000 confirmed infections in the state.FILE – Patients wearing face masks and personal protective equipment wait on line for COVID-19 testing outside Elmhurst Hospital Center, March 27, 2020, in New York City.This is the “highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started,” he remarked Friday.   
 
Looking ahead, in the near term, the governor warned that more people are going to die in hospitals due to a lack of ventilators.  
 
New York is the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, the country with the most COVID-19 cases.  
 
As of Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University, there are more than 245,000 COVID-19 cases in the country, with nearly 6,600 deaths. 
 
The virus is projected to become the top killer in the country on peak days this month, according to a daily tracker set up by an organization of assisted living facilities.  
 
The economic health of the nation also is in jeopardy. Economists are forecasting the U.S. unemployment rate soon will surpass levels seen during the global financial crisis 12 years ago.   
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Poland’s parliament is preparing to vote Friday on legislation that would transform the country’s May presidential election entirely into a mail-in ballot due to the health risks of having public voting stations during the coronavirus pandemic. The proposal by the populist ruling Law and Justice party to go forward with the May 10 election is controversial.  Opposition candidates say having the election during the pandemic is undemocratic and it should be postponed. They argue that opposition presidential candidates stand no chance against conservative President Andrzej Duda because they cannot campaign due to a strict ban on gatherings. Duda, meanwhile, still profits from heavy coverage on state media. Critically, even one faction in the ruling coalition is strongly opposed to holding the vote, raising speculation in Poland that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government could be toppled by the crisis.  Jaroslaw Gowin, center, the head of a faction within the ruling conservative coalition, speaks to reporters about his proposal to postpone a presidential election in Poland by two years in Warsaw, Poland, April 3, 2020.Surveys show that a large majority of voters in this European Union nation of 38 million want the election to be postponed due to the pandemic. Kamil Bortniczuk, a lawmaker with the faction opposed to the voting, told the radio broadcaster RMF FM his group would try to convince ruling party lawmakers “that Poles today do not want elections in such conditions and they cannot be prepared so quickly.” “There is not enough time to gain confidence among citizens in such a way of voting, and thus in the results of the election,” Bortniczuk said. Law and Justice officials insist that the current election timeline — voting on May 10 with a runoff on May 24 if no candidate wins 50% in the first round — is dictated by the constitution and should not be changed. The leader of the ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, insisted Friday that to postpone the election “would be completely illegal.” He said “there is no reason to postpone it at the moment if it is conducted in a safe way from a health point of view.” Poland has had far fewer coronavirus infections and deaths than fellow EU countries like Italy and Spain, but the numbers have been accelerating in recent days, reaching 2,946 infections and 57 deaths on Friday.  Some Polish media outlets have suggested the country’s true numbers are actually much higher due to low levels of testing. Polish media have also reported about people dying of pneumonia who most likely have COVID-19 but who do not show up in the statistics because they were not tested. The debate over the mail-in vote shares similarities with efforts in the United States by Democrats seeking widespread voting by mail in the November presidential and congressional elections. So far, the Democrats have not gotten the billions of dollars in federal funding required to move to widespread voting but say they will keep pressing the issue. 
 
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The European Commission said Friday that it was temporarily suspending taxes and duties on the import of medical equipment and protective wear from outside the European Union.In a video statement, Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said the commission recognized the needs of hospitals and health care workers and was making the move to ease pressure on prices for crucial equipment.She gave the example of Italy, where customs duties of 12 percent and a value-added tax of 22 percent are levied on some face masks or protective garments imported from countries like China. The new cuts would lower prices by one-third.Likewise, she said, an average 20 percent VAT on ventilators would be removed.She said the tax and duty cuts would be applied retroactively to January 30 and be in place at least four months, longer if necessary.
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An activist doctor who had criticized Russia’s response to the coronavirus outbreak was forcibly detained as she and some of her colleagues tried to deliver protective gear to a hospital in need.  Dr. Anastasia Vasilyeva of the Alliance of Doctors union was trying to take more than 500 masks, sanitizers, hazmat suits, gloves and protective glasses to a hospital in the Novgorod region about 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) northwest of Moscow on Thursday when she and the others were stopped by police on a highway.They were accused by police of violating self-isolation regulations, currently in place in many regions, including Moscow and Novgorod. The group was taken to a police station and held for hours, and the activists had to ask hospital workers to come to the station to pick up the gear.  After a night in custody, Vasilyeva appeared in court on charges of defying police orders. Two long court hearings later, she was ordered to pay fines totaling the equivalent of $20.”It was not about the money for them, It was about breaking me,” Vasilyeva said afterward. “But I’m even more convinced that we’re doing the right thing, and we will definitely keep on doing it.”Stay-home orderTwo weeks ago, Russia reported only a few hundred coronavirus cases and insisted the outbreak was under control. As the virus spread and more infections were reported this week, however, residents of Moscow and other cities were ordered to stay home.On Friday, officials reported 4,149 cases in the country, four times more than a week ago. The government sought to reassure the public that Russia has everything it needs to fight the outbreak and even sent planeloads of protective gear and medical equipment to Italy, the U.S. and other countries. Still, hospitals across the country complained about shortages of equipment and supplies, and earlier this week, the union began a fundraising campaign to buy protective gear for hospitals.Vasilyeva, who has become the most vocal critic of the Kremlin’s response to the virus, accused authorities of playing down the scale of the outbreak and pressuring medics to work without sufficient protection.”We realized that we can’t just sit and watch; otherwise it is going to be too late,” she said in a tweet Monday announcing the campaign.After being released from the police station, Vasilyeva was almost immediately detained again and charged with defying police orders. Video posted on Twitter by activists shows a dozen police officers gathering around Vasilyeva and two of them dragging her into the station.Assault accusationAccording to Ivan Konovalov, spokesman of the Alliance of Doctors, Vasilyeva was physically assaulted in the process and even fainted briefly. “We thought we may run into some difficulties, but no one could even imagine anything like that,” said Konovalov, who accompanied Vasilyeva to the Novgorod region.  The incident elicited outrage from other activists.”Why are they harassing this person, because she brought masks for the doctors? Bastards,” tweeted opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who supports the Alliance of Doctors and works closely with Vasilyeva.  Natalia Zviagina, Russia director of Amnesty International, said in a statement that “it is staggering that the Russian authorities appear to fear criticism more than the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.””By keeping her behind bars, they expose their true motive — they are willing to punish health professionals who dare contradict the official Russian narrative and expose flaws in the public health system,” Zviagina said.Russian military planes with medical supplies sit at Batajnica military airport near Belgrade, Serbia, April 3, 2020. The Russian Defense Ministry said it has sent medical and disinfection teams to Serbia to help fight the coronavirus.With the outbreak dominating the agenda in Russia, anyone who criticizes the country’s struggling health system becomes a thorn in the Kremlin’s side, said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter-turned-political analyst.  “The pressure will continue, because right now the most important political issue is on the table: How will the voters see the authorities after the crisis —as effective and acting in people’s interests, or ineffective, out of touch with the people, and in need of being replaced?” Gallyamov said.  Doctors’ unions say a shortage of protective equipment is one of the most pressing problems amid the outbreak. Konovalov said the Alliance of Doctors has gotten about 30 requests for protective gear from hospitals and medical facilities across Russia, and 100 more generic complaints about a lack of protective equipment.  Ambulance workers complainAndrei Konoval, chairman of the Action medical union, echoed that sentiment.”It is a serious problem that the authorities have started to solve, but not as fast as we want them to,” Konoval said, adding that his union is getting complaints from ambulance workers, who are often the first to come in contact with potentially infected patients.  Russian authorities sought to put a good face on the crisis. The Health Ministry said the outbreak has so far taken a “fortunate” course, while the Defense Ministry said it was sending another 11 planes with medical specialists and equipment to Serbia, a close ally of Moscow.In Moscow, which has the largest number of cases reported in the country, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill was driven around the city in a van carrying an icon, praying for the epidemic to end. Media reports said the motorcade caused traffic jams as it traveled around the capital.
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Setting up makeshift ICU wards in libraries and conference centers, embattled European medical workers strained Friday to save thousands of desperately ill coronavirus patients as stocks of medicine, protective equipment and breathing machines grew shorter by the hour.
A maelstrom of coronavirus deaths and job losses slammed the United States and Europe. Some 10 million Americans have been thrown out of work in just two weeks, the most stunning collapse the U.S. job market has ever witnessed. Global confirmed infections surged past 1 million and deaths hit 53,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.  
Experts say both numbers are seriously under-counted, due to the lack of testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are deliberately underplaying the impact of the pandemic.  
Europe’s three worst-hit countries — Italy, Spain and France — surpassed 30,000 dead, over 56% of the world’s death toll. From those countries, the view remained almost unrelentingly grim, a frightening portent even for places like New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, where trucks have been fork-lifting bodies outside overflowing morgues.
One Spanish hospital turned its library into a makeshift intensive-care unit. In France, space was being set aside for bodies in a vast food market. The French prime minister said he is “fighting hour by hour” to ward off shortages of essential drugs used to keep COVID-19 patients alive in intensive care.  
Philippe Montravers, an anesthesiologist in Paris, said medics are preparing to fall back on older drugs, such as the opiates fetanyl and morphine, that had fallen out of favor, as newer painkillers are now in short supply.  
“The work is extremely tough and heavy,” he said. “We’ve had doctors, nurses, caregivers who got sick, infected … but who have come back after recovering. It’s a bit like those World War I soldiers who were injured and came back to fight.”  
Some glimmers of hope emerged that Italy, with nearly 14,000 dead, Spain and France might be flattening their infection curves and nearing or even past their peaks in daily deaths.  
Spain on Friday reported 932 new daily deaths, just slightly down from the record it hit a day earlier. The carnage most certainly included large numbers of elderly people who authorities admit are not getting access to the country’s limited breathing machines, which are being used first on healthier, younger patients. More than half of Spain’s 10,935 deaths have come in the last seven days alone.
Some European officials are tentatively talking about the future, how to lift the nationwide lockdowns that have staved off the total collapse of strained health systems. Still, the main message across the continent was “stay at home.”
In France, the government warned Parisians not to even think about going anywhere for the Easter school vacation starting this weekend, setting up roadblocks out of the city to nab those with antsy children trying to escape lockdowns.
Beyond Europe, coronavirus deaths mounted with alarming speed in New York, the most lethal hot spot in the United States, which has seen at least 1,500 virus deaths. One New York funeral home had 185 bodies stacked up — more than triple its normal capacity.  
“It’s surreal,” owner Pat Marmo said, adding that he’s been begging families to insist hospitals hold their dead loved ones as long as possible. “We need help.”
Roughly 90% of the U.S. population is under stay-at-home orders, and many factories, restaurants, stores and other businesses are closed or have seen sales shrivel. Economists warned that U.S. unemployment would almost certainly top that of the Great Recession a decade ago and could reach levels not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
“My anxiety is through the roof right now, not knowing what’s going to happen,” said Laura Wieder, laid off from her job managing a sports bar in Bellefontaine, Ohio.  
The pandemic will cost the world economy as much as $4.1 trillion, or nearly 5% of all economic activity, the Asian Development Bank said Friday.  
At least a million people in Europe are estimated to have lost their jobs over the past couple of weeks as well. Spain alone added more than 300,000 to its unemployment rolls in March. But the job losses in Europe appear to be far smaller than in the U.S. because of countries’ greater social safety nets.
Estimates in China, the world’s second-largest economy, of those who have lost jobs or are underemployed run as high as 200 million. The government said Friday it would would provide an additional 1 trillion yuan ($142 billion) to local banks to lend at preferential rates to small- and medium-sized businesses.
With more than 245,000 people infected in the U.S. and the death toll topping 6,000, sobering preparations were underway. The Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the Pentagon for 100,000 more body bags.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with health problems, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death. The World Health Organization said this week that 95% of the deaths in Europe were of people who were over 60 years old.
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said U.S. infection data suggested that Americans need to emulate those European nations that have started to see the spread of the virus slowing through strict social distancing.  
The Trump administration was getting ready to recommend that ordinary Americans wear non-medical masks or bandannas over their mouths and noses when out in public so stocks of medical-grade masks could be preserved for those on the front lines.  
Shortages of critical equipment led to fierce competition between buyers from Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere. A regional leader in Paris described the scramble to source masks a “worldwide treasure hunt.”  
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said worldwide usage of essential drugs and disposable equipment, such as ventilator mouthpieces, used by intensive care units is “exploding in unimaginable proportions,” with a “nearly 2,000 percent increase” in demand “because it is happening everywhere in the world and at the same time.”  
Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that New York could run out of breathing machines in six days. 
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Prince Charles on Friday remotely opened the new Nightingale Hospital at London’s main exhibition and conference center, a temporary facility that will soon be able to treat 4,000 people who have contracted COVID-19.
Charles said he was “enormously touched” to be asked to open the temporary facility at the ExCel center in east London and paid tribute to everyone, including military personnel, involved in its “spectacular and almost unbelievable” nine-day construction.
“An example, if ever one was needed, of how the impossible could be made possible and how we can achieve the unthinkable through human will and ingenuity,” he said via video link from his Scottish home of Birkhall.
“To convert one of the largest national conference centres into a field hospital, starting with 500 beds with a potential of 4,000, is quite frankly incredible.”
The new National Health Service hospital will only care for people with COVID-19, and patients will only be assigned there after their local London hospital has reached capacity.
Charles, who earlier this week emerged from self-isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, said he was one of “the lucky ones” who only had mild symptoms, but “for some it will be a much harder journey.”
He expressed his hope that the hospital “is needed for as short a time and for as few people as possible.”
The hospital is named after Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered to be the founder of modern nursing. She was in charge of nursing British and allied soldiers in Turkey during the Crimean War of the 1850s, her selfless care earning her the reputation as the “Lady with the Lamp.”
Natalie Grey, the head of nursing at NHS Nightingale, unveiled the plaque formally opening the hospital on the prince’s behalf.
Further new hospitals are being planned across the U.K., including in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester, to alleviate the pressure on the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.
“In these troubled times with this invisible killer stalking the whole world, the fact in this country we have the NHS is even more valuable that before,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who also contracted COVID-19 and only emerged from his self-isolation on Thursday.
The number of people in Britain dying after testing positive for COVID-19 has been increasing sharply over the past couple of weeks. The latest U.K. figures showed that the number of people to have died increased in a day by 569 to 2,921.
Like many other countries, Britain is in effective lockdown, with bars and nonessential shops closed in order to reduce the rate of transmission, the hope being that it will eventually reduce the peak in deaths. Hancock would not be drawn across several interviews about when he expects the peak to be, beyond that it’s likely to occur in “coming weeks.”
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