Pandemic

China will send more than 2 million protective masks to the European Union after Europe becomes the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. This was announced today by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Layen, quoted by France's press.

Chinese Prime Minister Li Kutsian told Von der Lien in a phone call about sending medical supplies, she announced on Twitter.

Greece's public healthcare system has so far responded well to the challenge of the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic. The only exception, albeit an important one, seems to be the testing, which has been neither as widespread nor as quick as conditions require.

After China announced encouraging results with the drug Favipiravir, in the fight against the coronavirus, the spotlight turned to it. What do we know about this medicine so far?

There are now COVID-19 infected people in all 50 states of the United States after a positive test was reported in West Virginia yesterday, the BBC reported. Gov. Jim Justice said after announcing the first COVID-19 infected in the state, "We knew it would happen."

So far, there are 108 coronavirus deaths in the United States with over 6,300 infected.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Greeks on Tuesday that the country was "at war" with COVID-19, and warned that measures to fight the pandemic would hurt the fragile Greek economy.

Some 387 people in Greece have tested positive for coronavirus COVID-19 since February 26; five people have died and 70 are being treated in hospital, 11 of whom are in intensive care.

"I think all of us who are not experts at first underestimated the corona virus," Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview published today by the German daily "Bild".
She said officials realized that now all those measures that seemed drastic two or three weeks ago should be taken.

The notorious traffic congestion in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city by population, has eased over the past week amid the global coronavirus pandemic that is keeping residents away from the streets. 

The European Union will close its external borders for 30 days to tackle the epidemic of the new coronavirus. This was announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in a televised address. "All trips between non-European countries and the EU will be suspended for 30 days," Macron said.

The World Health Organization called on all countries on March 16 to ramp up their testing programs as the best way to slow the advance of the coronavirus pandemic, and also urged companies to boost production of vital equipment to overcome acute shortages.

There are already more fatal cases in the rest of the world than in China, the World Health Organization announced on Monday.

"More deaths and deaths have been reported in the rest of the world than in China," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva without citing recent data.