Doctors plead for supplies as nations seek to slow virus

Doctors and nurses are pleading for supplies such as masks and ventilators that are critical in their battle to treat a surging number of coronavirus patients, while governments on Tuesday continued to roll out measures that have put more than one-fifth of the world’s population under some form of lockdown.

High in the Himalayan mountains, Nepal became the latest country to compel its citizens to stay at home, joining large parts of Europe, Southeast Asia and the entire West Coast of the United States. 

By shuttering businesses, clearing streets and keeping people away from one another, authorities hope they can slow the spread of the pandemic and keep their health care systems from becoming overwhelmed.

In Britain, which on Monday imposed its most draconian peacetime restrictions on businesses and gatherings, health workers begged for more gear, saying they felt like “cannon fodder.” In France, doctors scrounged masks from construction workers and factory floors.

“There's a wild race to get surgical masks,” Francois Blanchecott, a biologist on the front lines of testing, told France Inter radio. “We're asking mayors' offices, industries, any enterprises that might have a store of masks.”

The race to find equipment came as the World Health Organization warned that the outbreak was accelerating and called on countries to take strong, coordinated action.

“We are not helpless bystanders,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief, noting that it took 67 days to reach 100,000 cases worldwide but just four days to go from 200,000 to 300,000. “We can change the trajectory of this pandemic.”

Stocks continued to fall on Wall Street even after the Federal Reserve said it will lend to small and large businesses and local governments to help them through the crisis, while partisan divisions stalled efforts to pass a colossal aid package in Congress. Asian stock markets reacted more positively Tuesday, with benchmarks in Japan and South Korea posting significant gains.

New York, new hotspot 

The scramble to marshal public health and political resources intensified in New York, where a statewide lockdown took effect Monday amid worries the city of 8.4 million is becoming one of the world's biggest hot spots. More than 23,200 people have tested positive in the city and almost 100 have died.

The mayor warned that the city's hospitals are just 10 days away from shortages in basic supplies, while the state's governor announced plans to convert a New York City convention centre into a hospital.

“This is going to get much worse before it gets better,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

In the US, President Donald Trump said he believes the American economy, which has been virtually shut down, could be reopened in weeks, not months.

Amid complaints of hospitals running low on masks, gloves and other critical gear, Trump signed an executive order making it a crime to stockpile supplies needed by medical workers. Attorney General William Barr said investigators will go after those hoarding goods on “an industrial scale” and price gouging.

On Capitol Hill, a nearly $2 trillion plan that would prop up businesses and send checks to American households has stalled. Democrats argued that it was tilted toward corporations rather than workers and health care providers.

Italy, Spain struggle with mounting health burden

In Italy, declines in both new cases and deaths for a second consecutive day provided a faint glimmer of hope. Officials said Monday that the virus had claimed just over 600 more lives, down from 793 two days earlier.

The outbreak has killed more than 6,000 Italians, the highest death toll of any country, and pushed the health system to the breaking point there and in Spain.

The risk to doctors, nurses and others on the front lines has become plain: Italy has seen at least 18 doctors with the coronavirus die. 

Spain reported that more than 3,900 health care workers have become infected.

For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever or coughing. But for some older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. Over 100,000 people have recovered, mostly in China.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the virus the “biggest threat this country has faced for decades” as he ordered people to stay home and directed shops that don't sell essential goods to shut down. He warned that police would be authorized to break up public gatherings of more than two people.

China is now sending planeloads of protective gear and doctors to Europe, as the crisis continues to ease in the country where the virus first emerged late last year. For more than a week, the vast majority of China’s cases have been in people coming into the country rather than from community spread, according to the country's National Health Commission.

Japan's prime minister and the head of the International Olympic Committee were to hold talks Tuesday as they consider postponing this summer's games in Tokyo.

More than 381,000 people worldwide have been infected and over 16,500 have died from the virus, according to a running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.5 billion people around the globe have been instructed to stay in their homes.