Death toll in coronavirus in China climbs to 1,665

Shanghai, Jun 13: Authorities in Beijing have temporarily shut a major wholesale agricultural market following a rise in locally transmitted novel coronavirus infections in China's capital city over the past two days.

The closure of the Xinfadi wholesale market at 3 a.m. local time on Saturday (1900 GMT on Friday), came after two men working at a meat research centre who had recently visited the market were reported on Friday as having been infected by the novel coronavirus. It was not immediately clear how the men had been infected.

Concern is growing of a second wave of the new virus, even in many countries that seemed to have curbed its spread. It was first reported at a seafood market in Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei province, in December.

Beijing authorities had earlier halted beef and mutton trading at the Xinfadi market, alongside closures at other wholesale markets around the city.

Reflecting concerns over the risk of further spread of the virus, major supermarkets in Beijing removed salmon from their shelves overnight after the virus causing COVID-19 was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at the market, the state-owned Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Beijing authorities said more than 10,000 people at the market will take nucleic acid tests to detect coronavirus infections. The city government also said it had dropped plans to reopen schools on Monday for students in grades one through three because of the new cases.

Health authorities visited the home of a Reuters reporter in Beijing's Dongcheng district on Saturday to ask whether she had visited the Xinfadi market, which is 15 km (9 miles) away. They said the visit was part of patrols Dongcheng was conducting.

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China reported 11 new COVID-19 cases and seven asymptomatic cases for Friday, the national health authority said on Saturday. And all six locally transmitted cases were confirmed in Beijing.

Scientists predict the world may have a COVID-19 vaccine within one year or even a few months earlier, said the Director-General of the World Health Organisation even as he underlined the importance of global cooperation to develop, manufacture and distribute vaccines.

However, making the vaccine available and distributing it to all will be a challenge and requires political will, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday during a meeting with the European Parliament's Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

One option would be to give the vaccine only to those that are most vulnerable to the virus.

There are currently over 100 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in various stages of development.

Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic has highlighted the importance of global solidarity and that health should not be seen as a cost but an investment.

He added that all countries in the world must strengthen primary health care and crisis preparedness and stressed the need for EU leadership globally.

While the Director-General said the situation in the EU has improved significantly, he underlined that COVID-19 is very much still circulating globally, with more than four million new cases in the last month.

Many Members of European Parliament said that the global community must cooperate including in developing, manufacturing and distributing vaccines against COVID-19 and asked when a safe vaccine could be available.

Several Members of European Parliament underlined the importance of the WHO but also said it has made mistakes in its response to the pandemic.

The Director-General admitted everyone makes mistakes and informed the members that an independent panel will evaluate the WHO response to the pandemic to learn from any mistakes made.

It will start its work soon, he said.

Rome, Mar 21: Italy on Friday reported a record 627 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, taking its overall toll past 4,000 as the pandemic gathered pace despite government efforts to halt its spread.

The total number of deaths was 4,032, with the number of infections reaching 47,021.

Italy's previous one-day record death toll was 475 on Wednesday.

The nation of 60 million now accounts for 36.6 percent of the world's coronavirus deaths.

Italy has seen more than 1,500 deaths from COVID-19 in the past three days alone.

Its current daily death rate is higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan's Hubei province.