US releases statement saying WHO inquiry lacks data; hospitals in Ecuador capital working above capacity; French president to address nation
- UK and US criticise WHO’s report and accuse China of withholding data
- About half of people in UK now have antibodies against coronavirus
- Merkel, Macron and Putin in talks about using Sputnik V jab in Europe
- How wealthy nations are creating a ‘vaccine apartheid’
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Just a very quick snap here from Reuters that French president Emmanuel Macron is expected to deliver a speech to the nation at 8pm local time.
Also in France in the last few minutes, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said on television that schools should be closed to rein in the spread of the coronavirus. Speaking ahead of possible new restrictive measures to be announced later in the day by the government, she said “I think the schools should be closed.”
Mexican officials said yesterday that many of the over 120,000 excess deaths Mexico suffered so far during the pandemic may have been indirectly caused by the coronavirus, even if those people didn’t die of Covid-19.
A “very significant part” of those deaths were people who were suffering heart problems but were too afraid to go the hospital for fear of getting infected, said Dr. Ruy López Ridaura, the country’s director of disease prevention and control.
