Coronavirus latest: US death toll reaches 100,000
- US fatalities top 100,000 out of over 350,000 global deaths
- Ireland set for deepest recession since records began
- Brazil reports over 20,000 new cases in single day
- Uptick of new cases in South Korea continues, albeit still at just 79 for the day
All times in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC/GMT)
03:55 About 14 million people in Latin America could face food insecurity as a result of the pandemic, according to latest estimates by the UN’s food-assistance branch, the World Food Program (WFP). This is a rise of almost four times as compared to last year, when 3.4 million people experienced food insecurity in the region. “It is what we are calling a hunger pandemic,” said Miguel Barreto, the WFP’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
However, the number could be higher as the WFP projection only takes into account the countries where it operates. In recession-hit Venezuela, where the agency doesn’t operate, one in three people were already facing food insecurity in 2019.
The WFP also predicted a contraction of 5.3% of the region’s economy, with some 30 million people pushed into poverty owing to the pandemic.
03:48 With 463 new coronavirus deaths reported in Mexico, the Latin American country now has a higher death toll than Germany. Mexico is now the eight heaviest-hit country by fatalities, losing 8,597 lives to the pandemic compared to Germany’s 8,428 deaths. Early on Thursday, Germany’s Robert Koch Institute reported 47 people dying from COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours.
This week, Health Undersecretary Hugo Lopez-Gatell said that Mexico was reaching the crest of the outbreak, but added that the epidemic might drag into October in some areas of the country.
The government has not imposed a mandatory quarantine but recommended residents to stay at home. Caseloads in several countries in Central and Latin America have been rising sharply of late, most notably in Brazil.
03:25 Late NBA superstar Kobe Bryant was set to be inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame in August, but the ceremony has now been postponed due to the coronavirus, officials said.
“We are definitely canceling,” Hall of Fame chairman Jerry Colangelo told US broadcaster ESPN. “It’s going to have to be the first quarter of next year.”
“We’ll meet in a couple of weeks and look at the options,” he added.
Bryant, who lost his life in a helicopter crash this January, would be enshrined along Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and five other athletes and coaches. The ceremony was due to be heldin Springfield, Massachusetts, home to the Hall of Fame.
Colangelo also told ESPN that the event might move from Springfield’s 2,611-seat venue to 8,319-seat MassMutual Center to facilitate social distancing.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
LA Lakers legend
Kobe Bryant built a stellar NBA career with the LA Lakers, won two Olympic gold medals, and also snatched an Oscar for his animated movie. Bryant died in a helicopter crash that also killed eight others, including his teenage daughter Gianna. His death, aged 41, shocked the world.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
Teenage prodigy
Bryant was drafted for the NBA at 17 years old, making him one of just a handful of players to enter the league straight out of high school. His talent was remarkable — but not completely unexpected. Kobe’s father Joe “Jelly Bean” Bryant is also a veteran NBA player.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
The Italian connection
The future Lakers star spent a good part of his childhood in Italy due to his father playing in the Italian league. Italy’s basketball federation president Giovanni Petrucci said of Bryant: “He spoke Italian very well. He even knew the local slang.” Bryant, who also spoke Spanish, often said it would be a “dream” to play in the country.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
Clutch player
Although Bryant was originally drafted by the Charlotte Hornets, the team quickly traded him to the LA Lakers. Bryant soon found his footing in Los Angeles, forging a partnership and launching a rivalry with Shaquille O’Neal. The two won their first championship together in 2000 and repeated the feat in 2001 and 2002.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
Accusation of rape
In 2003, a 19-year-old hotel worker accused Bryant of raping her. Bryant, who married his wife in 2001, admitted to having sex with the woman — but claimed the encounter was consensual. The victim did not testify in court and the rape charge was dropped. A civil lawsuit was later settled out of court.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
Dazzling milestones
During his two-decade career with the LA Lakers, Bryant scored 33,643 points, won five NBA championships, and was twice named the NBA Finals MVP. He was also selected for 18 NBA All-Star games. He retired in 2016.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
Winning at the Oscars
Bryant announced his retirement with a letter titled “Dear Basketball” in 2015. In 2017, the NBA superstar and Disney animator Glen Keane (r) turned the letter into a short animated film. The video won an Oscar at the 2018 Academy Awards.
-
The legacy of Kobe Bryant
Backing women’s sports
After retiring, Bryant used his celebrity clout to promote women’s sports, particularly basketball and soccer. His daughter Gianna, 13, was an avid basketball player. She was killed alongside her father on 26 January.
01:59 South Korea reported 79 new coronavirus infections, is biggest daily jump in over 50 days.The news comes after millions of children came returned to school on Wednesday. The latest increase is nearly double of 40 new cases registered on Wednesday, which itself was the largest daily rise in weeks.
Authorities have contemplated reimposing social distancing measures.
“We will do our best to trace contacts and implement preventive measures, but there’s a limit to such efforts,” said the country’s top infectious disease expert, Jeong Eun-kyeong, on Wednesday.
South Korea is often hailed as a positive example for containing the epidemic with aggressive tracking and testing. The country of nearly 52 million people has recorded a total of 11,344 cases and 269 fatalities. By contrast, Spain has a population around 46 million, roughly 236,000 cases, and just over 27,000 deaths. The apparent success has allowed South Korean authorities to ease some of the social distancing measures.
However, Seoul and nearby cities have been reimposing some of the the lockdown controls by closing bards, karaoke rooms and other popular venues in order to slow down the infection rate.
01:33 UK diplomats have left North Korea in response to the “travel retrictions” imposed by Pyongyang amid the pandemic, the UK Foreign Office said on Thursday.
Ambassador Colin Crooks said the British embassy was “closed temporarily” and that “all diplomatic staff have left the [North Korea] for the time being.” The move was made because “restrictions on entry to the country have made it impossible to rotate our staff and sustain the operation of the Embassy,” said the Foreign Office.
North Korea has not confirmed any coronavirus cases. However, the government of the isolated country has banned nearly all cross-border travel and imposed mandatory quarantine for newcomers.
Several countries, including Germany and France, closed their Pyongyang missions in March.
On Thursday, the UK said it was still maintaining diplomatic ties to North Korea and was hoping to reestablish its presence in Pyongyang as soon as possible.
01:20 Here’s a quick recap on the biggest development in Europe on Wednesday.
The European Commission announced a €750 billion ($821 billion) rescue plan to mitigate the economic fallout of the pandemic. The program would include a new recovery instrument, called Next Generation EU.
“I think that as we have a completely new situation, it is worth to go new ways,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told DW in Brussels.
She stressed the importance of repairing the bloc’s common market, which has been shaken by coronavirus restrictions.
“No member state is able to to that on its own, they are all integrated and dependent on each other, which is good,” said von der Leyen. “And therefore is in its our common interest to get the economy back on its feet.”
In the proposed plan, the EU will borrow €750 billion for the recovery fund on the financial markets, which would be repaid through future EU budgets.
The much-anticipated proposal follows a €500 billion plan put forward last week by France and Germany — often seen as the motor of the European Union. Their plan also called for the EU to borrow money in financial markets and to distribute it to industries and countries hard hit by the pandemic in the form of grants.
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the proposal, hailing a “crucial day for Europe.”
“We should all move quickly and adopt an ambitious agreement with all of our European partners,” Macron tweeted.
All 27 EU members would need to agree on the plan before it can take effect.
00:34 Ireland is facing its deepest recession on record, according to experts working for the country’s Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
The think-tank projected a 12.4% decline in the country’s GDP by the end of the year. The contraction was the “most likely” scenario, ESRI said. A more optimistic estimate would see a contraction of 8.6%, while a second wave of coronavirus infections would shrink the economy by 17.1%.
“Regardless of he scenario, the Irish economy is set to experience the largest annual decline in its history,” researchers said in a statement.
The nation’s unemployment has hit 28% in April, nearly double than what it was after the 2008 financial crisis.
The think-tank also predicts that government measures to combat the crisis would bring the public deficit for 2020 to over €27 billion ($30 billion), or some 9% of GDP.
The ESRI warned in its paper that “hard choices will have to be made” when financing such large deficits.
00:18 Brazil reported 20,599 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, bringing its total to 411,821. The South American country has the second biggest caseload in the world, after the US. With 1,086 people dying in the past 24 hours, Brazil’s death toll has reached 25,598.
The country’s right-wing leader, Jair Bolsonaro, has repeatedly dismissed fears of the virus and pressured governors to lift lockdown measures. He also joined several public protests against restrictions imposed to control the spread.
Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a well-known Brazil researcher, described the pandemic as “the worst war Brazil has ever faced.”
“We never lost 25,000 people in a span of three months,” he told the AFP news agency. He said the virus “came like an invading army, and it’s invading the whole of the country.”
00:00 After the US reported over 100,000 coronavirus deaths, Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden said the milestone “could have been avoided” and expressed his condolences to those who lost friends and relatives.
Biden, who is set to run as the Democratic candidate against Donald Trump in November, cited a recent Columbia University study that said 36,000 lives could have been saved if the government had imposed social distancing and lockdown measures just a week earlier than March 13.
00:00 You can catch up on our rolling updates from May 27 here.
dj/msh (Reuters, AP, dpa, AFP)
In reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, unless otherwise specified, DW uses figures provided by the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Coronavirus Resource Center in the United States. JHU updates figures in real-time, collating data from world health organizations, state and national governments and other public official sources, all of whom have their own systems for compiling information.
Germany’s national statistics are compiled by its public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). These figures depend on data transmission from state and local levels and are updated around once a day, which can lead to deviation from JHU.
DW sends out a daily selection of news and features. Sign up here.
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-latest-us-death-toll-reaches-100-000/a-53592616?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf