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The report from the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, published on 26 March, highlights the importance of acting early to suppress the outbreak. The analysis says that introducing social distancing, testing and isolating infected people would cut worldwide deaths to 1.9 million, if carried out when each country’s fatality rate is 0.2 per 100,000 people per week. Implementing these measures only when the death rate reaches 1.6 per 100,000 people per week leads to 10.5 million lives lost globally, it finds. According to Nature’s analysis of death rates from Our World in Data — counting each day at the centre of a rolling weekly window of deaths — Italy hit the 0.2 threshold on 2–3 March, the United Kingdom on 17 March, and the United States on 22 March.
The report did not quantify the social and economic impact of such policies.
The analysis was published on the same day that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the nation’s health minister, Matt Hancock, tested positive for the coronavirus. In a video addressed to the nation, Johnson said he had only mild symptoms and would continue to work remotely while isolating for 14 days.
27 March: Global infections are half a million, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world crossed 500,000 on 26 March, according to statistics compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The pandemic currently spans 175 countries and every inhabited continent.
By the end of the day on 26 March, the United States had overtaken China for the highest number of confirmed cases. Italy is also poised to surpass China in the coming days. Italy and Spain now have the two highest death tolls, with Italy accounting for more than one-third of the global total.
COVID-19 has claimed the lives of nearly 23,000 people. More than 120,000 have recovered from the disease.
Analyzing the data available to date on the new coronavirus, the authors of the work suggest that Covid-19 is also associated with high levels of inflammation that can induce inflammation of blood vessels, inflammation of the heart, arrhythmias. "It is likely that even in the absence of cardiovascular disease, the heart muscle may be affected by the coronavirus but the risk is higher for those who already suffer from heart disease, such as hypertension or patients with coronary artery problems that oxygenate the heart.
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New alarm from the Chinese city Wuhan
Carol C.