The health situation in Europe cannot be described as tragic, with the number of deaths exceeding four thousand Thursday in Spain, while London hospitals face the influx of patients in huge numbers, even if the World Health Organization spoke about " Encouraging signs "of the recent slowdown in the spread of Corona on the continent.
In the face of an unprecedented global crisis, the G20 video summit will try to coordinate its efforts in the face of the pandemic that "threatens all of humanity" according to the United Nations, despite unprecedented containment measures affecting more than three billion people.
The European Parliament allocates a special session for emergency measures against Covid-19 virus.
In London, a health official said Thursday that public hospitals in the capital face a continuous flow which he described as a "tsunami" for seriously ill patients, with a proportion of "previously unknown" health kits as well.
The UN Secretary-General warned that the virus, which appeared in China in December and killed about 20,600 people, "threatens all of humanity."
And with two-thirds of deaths recorded, Europe bears the highest burden at this stage as more than 250,000 cases were diagnosed according to the investigations conducted, more than half in Italy (74386) and Spain (56188), according to a tally prepared by AFP on Thursday at 12:00 GMT.
In Copenhagen, the director of the European branch at the World Health Organization, Hans Klug, said Thursday "Although the situation remains very worrying, we are beginning to see encouraging signs" of a slowing outbreak of the virus in Europe.
He said that the increase in the number of cases in Italy, the most affected in the world with more than 7500 deaths, seems to be slowing, "but it is too early to say that the epidemic reached its peak in this country."
Spain, which has become the world´s second most-affected country by number of deaths, has crossed the threshold of 4,000 deaths Thursday.
In Virtova, a small village in northern Italy, the number of people killed by the virus has surpassed that of WWII. "It is inconceivable to see that in 2020 a pandemic of this kind can strike us worse," said Mayor Orlando Gualde.
"Unfortunately, there are no masks or antiseptics in the village," said Augusta Mani, 63, who lives in the village.
As a result of the unprecedented containment measures that imposed domestic isolation on more than a third of humanity, the world is in a state of stagnation and the economy is collapsing.
Experts expect a massive increase in jobless claims in the United States.
In France, the National Statistics Institute estimates the cost of economic containment measures at 35%.
In response to these risks, the G20, which represents nearly two-thirds of the world´s population and three-quarters of the world´s gross domestic product, will prepare a “firm and coordinated” global response to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and its human and economic implications, as confirmed by the King of Saudi Arabia, who holds the group’s rotating presidency.
The emergency meeting comes the day after the US Senate approved a plan to support the US economy with a value of 2000 billion dollars in the United States, and the adoption of a package of measures in Germany worth 1100 billion euros.
After two sessions in which it made gains, the Tokyo Stock Exchange relapsed Thursday, due to the fear of a pandemic in the Japanese capital, whose residents were invited to avoid traveling this weekend.
London, Frankfurt and Paris, which has recovered in the past two days, have also opened a retreat on the back of fear of a pandemic, especially in the United States, the world´s largest economy and where the virus is spreading more quickly with nearly 68,572 confirmed cases of infection and more than 1,000 deaths, according to the last A tally announced by Johns Hopkins University.
