*26m America’s jobless pushed to depression level
*Testing of vaccine on human begins in UK
*Deadly protest in Venezuela amid the coronavirus pandemic
*Saudi G20 presidency urges more donations to fund COVID-19 response
Close to 50,000 people have now died of coronavirus in the United States. Even if we assume we’re at the top of the curve, tens of thousands more will die, CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf says.
According to him, by this time next week, it seems very possible that more people will have died in the US of Covid-19 than the 58,000 who died in nearly a decade of fighting in Vietnam.
“We’re already far past the more than 35,000 who died in the Korean War. The country was much smaller during those conflicts – but it seemed everyone had a story.
“The same will be true now. Even if you don’t know someone who has died of this disease, you can be sure the death toll includes relatives of people you’ve heard of. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s brother died and Rep. Maxine Waters’ sister is dying, we learned Thursday.
“And there’s more new data suggesting many more people have been infected than previously thought. Northeastern University researchers suggest that by March 1, when the first coronavirus case was confirmed in New York, more than 10,000 were already infected in the city.
“The country continues to try to figure out how to process tragic human loss on a wartime scale with the continued and unfathomable economic loss necessary to make sure fewer people die,” Wolf said.
AlJazeera also reports that US coronavirus deaths hit another grim milestone on Friday topping 50,000, as the number of lives lost in April rises by an average of 2,000 a day, according to the Worldometers website, which tracks the pandemic.
The Johns Hopkins website also showed the death toll inching closer to 50,000.
The total number of US cases hit 868,000 with many states yet to report early on Friday.
Also, US President Donald Trump has suggested that disinfectants could be injected into human beings as part of an experiment to fight the coronavirus.
During his latest news conference on Thursday, Trump also said that ultraviolet rays could be introduced through the skin to test whether it would work in curing the deadly disease.
But Keith Boykin @keithboykin tweeted that: “This will be Exhibit #1 in the class action lawsuit against Donald Trump filed by victims who died after following Trump’s idea of injecting themselves with disinfectant to kill the coronavirus.”
UK scientists have started testing an experimental vaccine as the death toll from the infection hits 50,000 in the US.
26 million people have sought US jobless aid in the past five weeks since the coronavirus hit. About one in six American workers have lost their jobs, by far the worst string of layoffs since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The US House of Representatives has passed a nearly $500bn spending package to help businesses and hospitals.
More than 190,000 people have died due to the pandemic, including 50,000 in the US, with 2.7 million infected globally, out of whom almost 750,000 have recovered.
Testing of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine began on healthy volunteers at University of Oxford in Britain, the latest in a cluster of early-stage studies in search of protection against the coronavirus.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says there are “worrying upward trends” in early epidemics in parts of Africa and Central and South America, warning that the “virus will be with us for a long time”.
A man has been shot dead in southern Venezuela during a protest against rising food prices, the military said amid the coronavirus crisis.
Protesters in Venezuela’s provincial cities took to the streets for a second day on Thursday. Dozens of people demonstrated in Upata, a town of about 100,000 in the southern state of Bolivar, protesting against “rising prices for food and essentials,” according to a report by the Venezuelan army seen by the AFP news agency.
As of Thursday, Venezuela reported an estimated 311 infections with at least 10 fatalities.
The Saudi presidency of the Group of 20 leading economies has called for further immediate donations to fund the emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic and develop needed vaccines.
The G20 secretariat said $1.9bn had been donated by countries, philanthropic organisations and the private sector towards an $8bn target set by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, but more funds were needed.
“Global challenges demand global solutions and this is our time to stand and support the race for a vaccine and other therapeutic measures to combat COVID-19,” Saudi G20 Fahad Almubarak said in a statement.
