These are some of the latest developments Wednesday in the world’s coronavirus pandemic:
NUMBER OF WORLDWIDE CASES TOPS 200,000
The number of people infected worldwide surpassed the 200,000 mark. Deaths topped 8,000, but the number of people considered recovered reached over 82,000, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The countries with the most confirmed cases were China, Italy, Iran, Spain and Germany. The countries with the most confirmed deaths were China, Italy, Iran, Spain and France.
GOVERNMENTS GRAPPLE WITH BORDER CLOSURES
Governments grappled with how to implement border closures and lockdowns that caused transportation chaos and imperiled economies but which authorities said y are needed to slow the spread of the virus. European Union leaders agreed to shut down the bloc’s external borders and ban entry of most foreigners for 30 days. The United States and Canada were working on a mutual ban on nonessential travel between the two countries.
WAR-RAVAGED MIDDLE EAST COUNTRIES FACE NEW SCOURGE
Long-running wars and conflicts across the Middle East have wrecked potential defenses against coronavirus outbreaks, leaving millions vulnerable in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere. Health care systems have been gutted; war has damaged key infrastructure. Several of the countries are carved up among opposing factions, rival claimant governments or armed groups, impeding any possible nationwide strategies to protect public health. Further complicating the response in countries with long-running conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes by fighting are crowded in close quarters in tent camps or improper housing.
PRISON INMATES SEEK COMPASSIONATE RELEASE
America’s nearly 7,000 jails, prisons and correction facilities are an ideal breeding ground for the coronavirus, as dangerous as nursing homes and cruise ships but far less sanitary. That has prompted some inmates to plead for compassionate release or home detention. Among them are President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, the former head of the Cali drug cartel and dozens of inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island, part of a jail system that lost an employee to the virus this week.
RESPECTING PERSONAL SPACE
The novel coronavirus has rapidly redefined the concept of respecting personal space for Italians, as well as for South Koreans, Filipinos, Americans, Spaniards and citizens of many other crowded parts of the world. In hard-hit Italy, a nationwide decree that took effect last week obliges people to stay at least 1 meter (about 40 inches) apart. Overnight, habits were turned upside down in a tactile society where walking arm-in-arm with friends, kissing neighbors in greeting and patting the heads of babies are the norm. Whether acting under government orders or following basic public health advice, people are putting distance between themselves to keep the coronavirus away.
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