Giuseppe shuts down all non-essential factories, businesses
Rome
Italy has shut all non-essential factories as the country takes increasingly drastic measures to halt the epidemic that claimed another 850 lives on Saturday to take the national death toll to 4,825.
Spain recorded nearly 400 deaths in the past day as Australia and India escalated their responses to the virus with more than 300,000 confirmed cases worldwide by Sunday morning.
In a dramatic late-night television address on Saturday, Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister, warned the nation was facing its gravest crisis since the second world war and said all non-essential businesses must close until 3 April.
“The decision taken by the government is to close down all productive activity throughout the territory that is not strictly necessary, crucial, indispensable, to guarantee us essential goods and services,” Conte said
Groceries and pharmacies would remain open and although he did not specify and what “indispensable” companies were, he was expected to release a decree on Sunday explaining his plans.
“We will slow down the country’s productive engine, but we will not stop it,” Conte said.
Deaths in Spain rose by 30% in the past 24 hours for a total of 1,720, authorities in Madrid announced, up from 288 a week ago.
“Unfortunately, the worst is to come,” prime minister Pedro Sánchez said on Saturday. “We have yet to feel the impact of the hardest, most damaging wave, one that will test the limits of our moral and material capacity, as well as our spirit as a society.” The Australian government said it would shut pubs, cinemas and restaurants but said schools would remain open for now, though some states have ordered their students to leave the classroom. South Australia and Western Australia said they would close their borders to other states this week.
India’s confirmed coronavirus cases grew to 341 on Sunday and the government ordered lockdowns in 75 districts across the country to contain the spread. Delhi was among several cities to ban all gatherings in the capital and more than a billion Indians across the country observed a one-day national curfew on Sunday.
China, which recorded its first new domestic case for four days, still has the most cases with 81,346, according to Johns Hopkins University but the United States has the third-highest number of cases.
The US has 85 million people subject to stay-at-home orders after New Jersey on Saturday joined New York, Connecticut, Illinois and California in ordering people to stay inside.– The Guardian
