Description
Added on the 17/12/2020 16:09:28 - Copyright : France 24 EN
In what Italy's prime minister said was 'not an easy decision,' PM Giuseppe Conte has put the country on lockdown for the holidays. Business Insider reports Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told reporters that experts fear there will be a jump in COVID-19 cases over Christmas. Italy wasn't the only European country to tighten restrictions over the holidays — the UK and Germany have both announced heightened coronavirus restrictions. Johns Hopkins University data reports that as of Saturday, Italy had recorded over 1.9 million confirmed cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began. Thus far, nearly 68,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in Italy.
Outside Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, once suspected of being the epicentre of the outbreaks, that has been closed since January 2020. More than three years after the discovery of the first cases of the coronavirus, the origin of the pandemic remains enigmatic. IMAGES
Residents in a locked down compound line up for Covid tests as Shanghai logs 39 Covid deaths Sunday, its highest daily toll despite weeks of lockdowns. IMAGES
Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes hands over the keys of the Brazilian city to the Rei Momo - king of the carnival - marking the start of the first carnival since Covid-19 hit Brazil, promising a giant, glittering spectacle of pandemic catharsis. IMAGES
Images of people walking in protective gear in a quiet street of Shanghai as the city reports that three people had died from Covid-19. This is the first official announcement of deaths from the latest outbreak that plunged the megacity into a weeks-long lockdown, sparking widespread anger and rare protests. IMAGES
Workers in PPE test residents, including elderly and children, in a locked-down Shanghai residential district. Shanghai, a city of 25 million and China's economic engine room, has become the heart of the country's biggest outbreak since the peak of the first virus wave in Wuhan over two years ago, rattling the country's adherence to a strict zero-Covid policy. Residents locked down since early April have complained of food shortages and over-zealous officials forcing them into state quarantine, as authorities rush to construct tens of thousands of beds to house Covid-19 patients with daily infections topping 20,000. IMAGES