The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus hit 100,000 as Christians around the globe marked a Good Friday unlike any other — in front of computer screens instead of in church pews — and some countries tiptoed toward reopening segments of their battered economies.
Around the world, public health officials and religious leaders alike warned people against violating the lockdowns and social distancing rules over Easter and allowing the virus to come storming back. Authorities resorted to roadblocks and other means to discourage travel.
The true number of lives lost is believed be much higher because of limited testing, different rules for counting the dead and cover-ups by some governments. For example, in places like New York, Italy and Spain, many victims who died outside a hospital — say, in a home or a nursing home — have not been part of the count.
In the U.S., deaths climbed past 16,700, with close to half in New York state. Still, there were signs of hope.
New York state reported 777 new deaths, down slightly from the day before, for an overall toll of more than 7,800.
“I understand intellectually why it’s happening,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “”It doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”
But state officials said the number of people in intensive care dropped for the first time since mid-March and hospitalizations are slowing: 290 new patients in a single day, compared with daily increases of more than 1,000 last week.
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Cuomo said if the trend holds, New York might not need the overflow field hospitals that officials have been scrambling to construct.
“There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dr. Jolion McGreevy, medical director of Mount Sinai Hospital’s emergency department. “It’s getting better, but it’s not like it’s going to just drop off overnight. I think it’s going to continue to slowly decline over the next weeks and months.”
With the pandemic slamming economies, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the global economy is headed for the worst recession since the Depression.
In Europe, the 19 countries that use the euro currency overcame weeks of bitter divisions to agree on spending $550 billion to cushion the recession caused by the virus. Mario Centeno, who heads the eurozone finance ministers’ group, called the package “totally unprecedented. ... Tonight Europe has shown it can deliver when the will is there.”
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