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| A worker disinfects the floor of a supermarket in Kosovo (AFP Photo/Armend NIMANI) |
Wuhan (China) (AFP) - The Chinese city at the origin of the coronavirus outbreak revised up its death toll by 50 percent Friday, as global criticism mounted over China's handling of the deadly pandemic.
Since
emerging from Wuhan late last year, the coronavirus has embarked on a deadly
march across the planet, killing more than 145,000 people and wrecking the
global economy with more than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- trapped
indoors.
But some
countries across Europe are starting to slowly ease back weeks-old restrictions
after deaths and infections showed signs of stabilising, and the German health
minister said Friday his country's outbreak was "under control".
While
President Donald Trump announced a phased reopening of the United States, the
economic devastation was clear to see in China, where gross domestic product
slammed into reverse for the first time since records began.
Wuhan's
city government added 1,290 deaths to its toll, bringing the total to 3,869
after many dead were "mistakenly reported" or missed entirely, adding
to growing global doubts over China's transparency.
Leaders in
France and Britain joined Trump's broadsides against China, as two US media
outlets reported suspicions the virus accidentally slipped out of a sensitive
Wuhan laboratory that studied bats.
President
Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times it would be "naive" to think
China had handled the pandemic well, adding: "There are clearly things
that have happened that we don't know about."
Beijing hit
back on Friday, insisting there had been no cover-up.
"There
has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment," a
foreign ministry spokesman said.
Life-and-death balance
World
leaders are grappling with the question of when -- and how -- to reopen
society, seeking a life-and-death balance between unfreezing stalled economies
and preventing a deadly second coronavirus wave.
While Trump
declared Thursday that the time had come for the "next front in our
war" with a phased reboot of the US economy, others took the opposite path
-- Japan, Britain and Mexico all expanded current restrictions.
Despite the
United States suffering a staggering 4,500 deaths in the last 24 hours --
taking the national toll to almost 33,000 -- Trump proclaimed: "We're
opening up our country."
The
president's approach was a step back from previous hopes for a sudden reopening
however, and state governors were given the freedom to set their own plans to
resume business.
Lightly
affected states can open "literally tomorrow", said Trump, while
others would receive White House "freedom and guidance" to achieve
that at their own pace.
In New York
state for example -- where more than 11,500 have died -- Governor Andrew Cuomo
extended a shutdown order until May 15.
In some of
the world's most vulnerable economies, lockdown measures were starting to
pinch.
Tobacco
farmers in Zimbabwe feared a delayed start to normally busy auction season, the
lifeblood for thousands of growers in impoverished rural regions.
"This
year our harvest hasn't been good at all... just average," farmer Shaw
Mutalepo told AFP, as workers in face masks crunched cured leaves into large
bales.
"We
might have a delay (in selling) just because of the lockdown," he added.
"It will affect our preparations for the next season."
'Lost
decade'
Meanwhile,
there were more signs the global economy is imploding.
China
reported Friday its GDP shrank 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the first
contraction since quarterly growth data started in the early 1990s.
In the US,
another 5.2 million workers lost their jobs, bringing the total number of newly
unemployed to a staggering 22 million since mid-March.
John
Williams, a top Federal Reserve official, predicted it would take "a year
or two" if not longer for the US to recover from what the International
Monetary Fund has termed the "Great Lockdown" battering the global
economy.
The virus
could spark another "lost decade" in Latin America, the IMF warned,
while experts cautioned that freezing debt for poor countries will not save
many developing world economies.
And in
Europe, automobile sales shrank 55 percent in March, according to the
industry's trade association.
'It's
awful'
Some
European countries -- such as hard-hit Spain and Italy -- were embarking on a
long road back to normality, with Venice residents strolling around quiet
canals stripped of their usual throngs of tourists.
Switzerland,
Denmark and Finland were among those gradually re-opening shops and schools.
In Germany,
select small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday and some children could
soon return to school within weeks.
Infection
rates there "have sunk significantly" and the outbreak is "under
control", Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday.
Germany's
coronavirus deaths and infections have stood firmly below some of their
worst-hit European neighbours, which experts say is in part thanks to
widespread testing.
Spahn said
Germany would produce up to 50 million masks a week starting in August, to fill
a yawning gap in supplies prompted by the pandemic.
But
Britain, which shut down later than continental Europe, extended its lockdown
for at least three more weeks.
It
announced close to 850 new deaths on Friday, a slight spike from previous days
that saw fatalities start to draw down.
And in
Russia, recorded infections topped 32,000 as President Vladmir Putin warned
that "the risks surrounding the epidemic's spread are still very high, not
just in Moscow but in many other Russian regions".
Around the
world, people have come up with ingenious ways to bring back some semblance of
normality -- and social connection -- to their upended lives.
In Rome an
18-year-old guitarist takes to his balcony every evening at sunset to play
covers of Italian classics.
"We
decided to lend a hand to Italians: a message of hope," Jacopo Mastrangelo
told AFP from his patio.
"We
are accustomed to always seeing Rome full, teeming with people. Now the grass
is growing between the cobblestones, everything has been left abandoned, and we
decided to help."
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