'Virus puts UK PM in intensive care; Japan declares emergency
25 minutes ago
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in intensive care Tuesday with the coronavirus, while Japan’s leader declared a monthlong state of emergency for Tokyo and six other regions to keep the virus from ravaging the world’s oldest population.
The 55-year-old Johnson, the world’s first head of government known to have fallen ill with the virus, was in stable condition and conscious at a London hospital, where he was receiving oxygen but was not on a ventilator, said his spokesman James Slack. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was designated to run the country in the meantime.
“We’re desperately hoping that Boris can make the speediest possible recovery,” said Cabinet minister Michael Gove, who is among scores of British officials in self-isolation. Johnson’s pregnant fiancee is recovering from coronavirus symptoms.
Japan’s prime minister made the emergency declaration after a spike in infections in Tokyo, but it was a stay-at-home request — not an order — and violators will not be penalized. Despite having relatively few infections and deaths, Japan is a worrying target for a virus that has been killing the elderly at much higher rates than other age groups.
Deaths in the U.S. reached about 11,000, with about 370,000 confirmed infections.
In New York and in some European hot spots, authorities were hoping that plateaus in deaths and new hospitalizations meant that the outbreak was turning a corner.
In Spain, one of the hardest-hit countries, new deaths Tuesday rose to 743 and infections climbed by 1,000 after five days of declines, but the increases were believed to reflect a weekend backlog. Authorities said slowing the contagion will be a long process and were confident in the downward trend.
New coronavirus cases were also slowing in Italy and France, while Portugal reported its lowest daily rise in new infections since the outbreak began. To keep up social distancing, Paris banned daytime jogging just as warm spring weather settled in for a week."
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