COVID-19: ARE WE TESTING ENOUGH? HERE'S HOW INDIA FARES VERSUS OTHERS

The global tally of Covid-19-positive cases now stands at over 1.5 million, and the number of fatalities is nearly 83,000. With countries upping their testing capabilities to stem a surge in coronavirus infections, more than 11 million tests have been conducted across the globe so far.

India has conducted around 160,000 tests (as on April 8), according to ICMR data. And the country’s tally of positive cases stands at 6,237 (at 6 pm on April 9) – implying 3.8 per cent of the tests yielded positive results for coronavirus.

The US, by comparison, has conducted 2.2 million tests – the most among all countries – and seen a fifth of all those tests throwing up positive results.

Among other countries that have been hit badly by the pandemic, the ratio of infections to tests conducted is the highest in Iran. Its tally of positive cases currently stands at over 64,000, which is 31 per cent of the 200,000 Covid-19 tests it has conducted.

Iran is followed by Belgium and France. In Belgium, around 26 per cent of all who were tested turned out to be infected. France had conducted over 200,000 tests as on April 2 (the latest available data), and it had 59,000 confirmed cases – a ratio of 26.4 per cent.

Germany, which is among the countries with very high numbers for Covid-19 tests conducted, had seen only 5.6 per cent of the samples yielding positive results as on April 1 (the latest available data on tests conducted by that country).

For Spain, the ratio stands at 7.2 per cent, with 300,000 tests and around 25,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases as on March 21. Spain’s current tally of cases is 150,000.

The number of tests conducted by India is lower than other countries on a per-capita-ratio basis. With a population of around 1.38 billion, India’s Covid-19 tests per 10,000 population has been merely 0.04.

Spain has the highest number of tests per capita among top-10 countries by tests conducted – 18.3 per 10,000 population. It is followed by Italy, with 15.8 tests per 10,000 population. The per-capita test ratios for both Germany and the UK stand at around eight per 10,000 population.

The US tops the charts with most number of tests carried out, but it stands much lower in per-capita testing ratio – 1.2 tests per 10,000 people. South Korea and Russia both fare even worse than the US, each with a ratio of 0.6 tests per 10,000 population. The case tally for both countries currently stands at over 10,000, even as they have flattened their growth rates for new cases.

COVID-19: WORLD FACES WORST CRISIS SINCE GREAT DEPRESSION, SAYS IMF CHIEF

The global coronavirus pandemic has inflicted an economic crisis unlike any in the past century and will require a massive response to ensure recovery, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said Thursday.

The warnings about the damage inflicted by the virus already were stark, but Georgieva said the world should brace for “the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression.”

With nearly 89,000 deaths in 192 countries and territories and the number of cases now surpassing 1.5 million worldwide, much of the global economy has been shut down to contain the spread of the virus.

The International Monetary Fund expects “global growth will turn sharply negative in 2020,” with 170 of the fund’s 180 members experiencing a decline in per capita income, Georgieva said.

Just a few months ago, the fund was expecting 160 countries to see rising per capita income, she said in a speech previewing next week’s spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, which will be held virtually due to the restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19.

‘It could get worse’

Even in the best-case scenario, the IMF expects only a “partial recovery” next year, assuming the virus fades later in 2020, allowing normal business to resume as the lockdowns imposed to contain its spread are lifted.

But she added this ominous caution: “It could get worse.”

There is “tremendous uncertainty around the outlook” and the duration of the pandemic, Georgieva said.

CORONAVIRUS | BORIS JOHNSON LEAVES INTENSIVE CARE, REMAINS UNDER OBSERVATION

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson left intensive care on Thursday evening as he continues to recover from COVID-19, but he remains under close observation in hospital, his office said on Thursday.

“The prime minister has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward, where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery,” a spokesman from his office said in an emailed statement. “He is in extremely good spirits.”

Mr. Johnson was the first world leader to be hospitalised with the coronavirus, forcing him to hand control of the world's fifth-largest economy to foreign minister Dominic Raab just as Britain's outbreak approaches its most deadly peak.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that the improvement in Mr. Johnson's condition was “great news”.

News of Mr. Johnson's ongoing recovery prompted a small rise in the value of sterling against the dollar.

However, the government statement did not give any details on when Mr. Johnson may be able to resume leadership, and Mr. Raab - speaking before the latest announcement - had stressed the importance of allowing the prime minister to focus on recovery.

EU AGREES €500BN CORONAVIRUS RESCUE PACKAGE

EU finance ministers have agreed a €500bn (£440bn) rescue package for European countries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

The chairman of the Eurogroup, Mário Centeno, announced the deal, reached after marathon discussions in Brussels.

It comes as Spain's prime minister said the country was close to passing the worst of its coronavirus outbreak.

At their Brussels talks, EU ministers failed to accept a demand from France and Italy to share out the cost of the crisis by issuing so-called coronabonds.

The package finally agreed is smaller than the European Central Bank (ECB) had urged.

The ECB has said the bloc may need up to €1.5tn (£1.3tn) to tackle the crisis.

However, the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, hailed the agreement as the most important economic plan in EU history.

"Europe has decided and is ready to meet the gravity of the crisis," he tweeted after the talks.

The main component of the rescue plan involves the European Stability Mechanism, the EU's bailout fund, which will make €240bn available to guarantee spending by indebted countries under pressure.

AT UNSC MEET, UN CHIEF GUTERRES WARNS OF BIO-TERRORISM, SOCIAL UNREST

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the UN Security Council on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic is threatening international peace and security — “potentially leading to an increase in social unrest and violence that would greatly undermine our ability to fight the disease.”

The UN’s most powerful body, which has been silent on Covid-19 since it started circling the globe sickening and killing tens of thousands, issued its first brief press statement after the closed meeting. It expressed “support for all efforts of the secretary-general concerning the potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic to conflict-affected countries and recalled the need for unity and solidarity with all those affected.”

Guterres, who called for a cease-fire for all global conflicts on March 23, said the crisis has “hindered international, regional and national conflict resolution efforts, exactly when they are needed most.”

He cited other pressing risks to global security from the pandemic: terrorists seeing an opportunity to strike, groups seeing how a biological terrorist attack might unfold, the erosion of trust in public institutions, economic instability, political tensions from postponing elections or referenda, uncertainty sparking further division and turmoil in some countries, and Covid-19 “triggering or exacerbating various human rights challenges.”

NO OBJECTION TO EUROPE SENDING MEDICAL SUPPLIES TO IRAN: TRUMP

The US has no objection to Europe sending medical supplies to Iran, which has been badly hit by the deadly coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said.

The Trump administration has imposed one of the toughest economic sanctions on Iran alleging that it is going ahead with its nuclear ambition and it is supporting terrorist organisations to destabilise the Middle east.

“They (Europeans) are sending medical goods to Iran. That doesn’t bother me”, Trump told reporters during a White House news conference.

Iran has become one of the world’s coronavirus epicenters, with more than 66,000 people infected and over 4000 deaths. He was responding to a question on the call made by French President Emanuel Macron to his Iranian counterpart that Europe has started to ship the medical goods to Iran.

“Medical good?… That doesn’t bother me,” Trump said.

MOST NEW YORK VIRUS CASES CAME FROM EUROPE

New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first confirmed case, and that travellers brought in the virus mainly from Europe, not Asia.

“The majority is clearly European,” said Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review.

A separate team at NYU Grossman School of Medicine came to strikingly similar conclusions, despite studying a different group of cases. Both teams analysed genomes from coronaviruses taken from New Yorkers starting in mid-March.

The research revealed a previously hidden spread of the virus that might have been detected if aggressive testing programmes had been put in place.

On January 31, President Donald Trump barred foreign nationals from entering the country if they had been in China during the prior two weeks.

It would not be until late February that Italy would begin locking down towns and cities, and March 11 when Mr. Trump said he would block travellers from most European countries. But New Yorkers had already been travelling home with the virus. “People were just oblivious,” said Adriana Heguy, a member of the NYU team.

OIL PRODUCERS AGREE TO CUT PRODUCTION BY A FIFTH

Opec producers and allies have agreed to cut output by more than a fifth to counter the slump in demand caused by coronavirus lockdowns.

The group said it would cut output in May and June by 10 million barrels to help prop up prices. The cuts will then be eased gradually until April 2022.

Opec+, made up of Opec producers and allies including Russia, held talks on Thursday via video conference.

Talks were complicated by disagreements between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The group and its allies agreed to cut 10 million barrels a day or 10% of global supplies. Another 5 million barrels is expected to be cut by other nations.

It said the cuts would be eased to eight million barrels a day between July and December. Then they would be eased again to six million barrels between January 2021 and April 2022.

ROCKETS HIT U.S. AIR BASE IN AFGHANISTAN; NO CASUALTIES

Five rockets hit a U.S. air base in Afghanistan on Thursday, but there were no casualties, two senior security officials said, and no militant group immediately claimed responsibility.

The attack comes as the Afghan government has launched the release of Taliban prisoners from a jail near the Bagram base, as part of a confidence-building step in a U.S.-Taliban peace deal aimed at ending about two decades of war in Afghanistan.

“Five rockets were fired at Bagram airfield early this morning,” the NATO-led mission, Resolute Support, said on Twitter. “There were no casualties or injuries.”

The rockets targeting the largest U.S. military compound in Afghanistan were fired from a vehicle parked in an adjoining village.

A hundred Taliban members are scheduled to be freed on Thursday from the detention facility near the base, following Wednesday's release of 100 members of the hardline Islamist group.

The prisoner exchange deal provides for the government to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners, with the Taliban releasing 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces in exchange.

But the Taliban rebuffed the overture, saying they were unable to verify which prisoners had been released.

The Afghan government said it was committed to honour the deal but would not release senior Taliban commanders accused of carrying out some of the most brutal attacks in recent years.

CORONAVIRUS WIDESPREAD AMONG SAUDI ROYAL FAMILY: REPORT

Dozens of members of the ruling Saudi royal family, as many as 150, have been infected with coronavirus in recent weeks, a news report said.

Saudi Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud - the governor of the capital Riyadh who is in his 70s - is in intensive care after contracting the virus, according to The New York Times, which cited hospital communications, doctors in the country and sources familiar with the family.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) have retreated into isolation to avoid the outbreak.

Doctors at an elite hospital that treats royals are preparing 500 more beds for an expected influx of patients.

"Directives are to be ready for VIPs from around the country," the operators of the elite facility, the King Faisal Specialist Hospital, wrote in a "high alert" sent out electronically on Tuesday to senior doctors and later obtained by the Times.

"We don't know how many cases we will get but high alert," said the message, which instructed "all chronic patients to be moved out ASAP" and only "top urgent cases" will be accepted, according to the newspaper.

There are thousands of Saudi princes. Many travel regularly to Europe and some are believed to have contracted the virus abroad and brought it back to Saudi Arabia, the report said.

The kingdom of about 33 million people has reported 3,300 cases and 44 deaths.

CORONAVIRUS | PANDEMIC MAY CAUSE AFRICA’S 1ST RECESSION IN 25 YEARS: WORLD BANK

The World Bank on Thursday warned sub-Saharan Africa could slip into its first recession in a quarter of century because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We project that economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa will decline from 2.4% in 2019 to -2.1 to -5.1% in 2020, the first recession in the region in 25 years,” the Bank said in an assessment.

COVID-19 | KHAMENEI SUGGESTS RAMADAN GATHERINGS IN IRAN MAY BE BARRED

Iran’s supreme leader suggested Thursday that mass gatherings in the Islamic Republic may be barred through the holy Muslim fasting month Ramadan amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comment in a televised address as Iran prepares to restart its economic activity while suffering one of the world’s worst outbreaks. He is also the highest-ranking official in the Muslim world to acknowledge the holy month of prayer and reflection will be disrupted by the virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes.

“We are going to be deprived of public gatherings in the month of Ramadan,” Khamenei said during a speech marking the birth of Imam Mahdi. “Those gatherings are meetings for praying to God or listening to speeches which are really valuable. In the absence of these meetings, remember to heed your prayers and devotions in your lonesomeness.”

Ramadan is set to begin in late April and last through most of May. Iranian public officials had not yet discussed plans for the holy month, which sees the Muslim faithful fast from dawn until sunset. However, Iranian mosques have been closed and Friday prayers cancelled across the country for fear of the virus spreading among those attending.

Khamenei urged Shiite faithful to pray in their homes during Ramadan.

FRANCE RULES GOOGLE MUST PAY NEWS FIRMS FOR CONTENT

France's competition authority ruled on Thursday that Google must pay French publishing companies and news agencies for re-using their content.

The U.S. tech firm said it would comply with the French competition authority verdict, which followed a complaint by unions representing French press publishers.

“Google's practices caused a serious and immediate harm to the press sector, while the economic situation of publishers and news agencies is otherwise fragile,” France's 'Autorite de la Concurrence' said in a statement.

“Since the European copyright law came into force in France last year, we have been engaging with publishers to increase our support and investment in news”, Richard Gingras, vice president of News at Google, said in a statement.

SECOND PM-DESIGNATE IN FIVE WEEKS RESIGNS IN IRAQ

Iraq’s second prime minister-designate in just over a month withdrew his candidacy on Thursday following political infighting, leaving a leadership vacuum at the helm of the government amid a severe economic crisis and viral pandemic.

Adnan Al-Zurfi’s candidacy was imperiled in the past 48 hours when key Shia parties rallied around Iraq’s intelligence chief, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, to replace him. His chances were further diminished when the main Kurdish and Sunni blocs withdrew support for his candidacy.

Iraq’s president appointed Kadhimi as prime minister-designate shortly after Al-Zurfi’s resignation.

CHADIAN TROOPS 'KILL 1,000 BOKO HARAM FIGHTERS' IN LAKE CHAD

The Chadian army says it has killed 1,000 fighters during an operation against the Boko Haram armed group in the Lake Chad border region.

Army spokesman Colonel Azem Bermendoa Agouna told the AFP news agency that 52 troops died during the operation, which was launched on March 31.

"A thousand terrorists have been killed, 50 motorised canoes have been destroyed," the colonel said, referring to a large boat also called a pirogue.

Agouna said the operation, which was launched after nearly 100 soldiers were killed in a Boko Haram attack last month, ended on Wednesday after the armed fighters were forced out of the country.

It is the first official snapshot of the outcome of Operation Bohoma Anger, launched after at least 92 soldiers were killed on March 23 in the deadliest-ever attack by Boko Haram on the country's military forces. The armed group had mounted a seven-hour assault on a Chadian army base at Bohoma.

Reporting from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said: "The country is trying to help other regional powers and regional forces under a group called the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to finally defeat the Boko Haram."

CHINA RECLASSIFIES DOGS AS PETS, NOT LIVESTOCK

China has drawn up new guidelines to reclassify dogs as pets rather than livestock, the agriculture ministry said, part of a response to the coronavirus outbreak that the Humane Society called a potential “game changer” in animal welfare.

Though dog meat remains a delicacy in many regions, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a notice published on Wednesday that dogs would no longer be considered as livestock. It uses that designation for animals that can be bred to provide food, milk, fur, fibre and medicine, or to serve the needs of sports or the military.

“As far as dogs are concerned, they have been ‘specialised’ to become companion animals, and internationally are not considered to be livestock, and they will not be regulated as livestock,” it said.