Wearing black face masks and roses, Spanish dignitaries have paid tribute in Madrid to the victims of the coronavirus pandemic, as the virus continues to ravage countries around the world.
King Felipe VI led Spain’s commemoration at an esplanade in Madrid’s Royal Palace, accompanied by the relatives of 100 people who died during the pandemic, medical personnel, police and other essential workers, government members and officials from the EU and the World Health Organization.
The memorial took place as Spain continued to battle scores of localised outbreaks, many centred on Catalonia in the north, which has been forced to reintroduce lockdowns in the most affected areas.
The solemn ceremony for around 400 guests took place as Russia announced it had recorded 750,000 infections during its outbreak and France accelerated plans to make it compulsory to wear protective face masks in enclosed public spaces because of concerns about Covid-19.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Tuesday that mask-wearing would be mandatory in places such as shops from 1 August because of signs coronavirus was “coming back a bit”.
But the prime minister, Jean Castex, said on Thursday that the order would take effect next week. Until now, it has been mandatory to wear face coverings outdoors only on public transport and in public spaces where social distancing is not possible.
The health minister, Olivier Véran, noted signs of a “resurgence” in coronavirus, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives in France to date.
“We are witnessing in certain hospitals in Paris weak signs of an epidemic resurgence, which is why I urge the French to remain particularly vigilant, active, against the virus,” he told public radio.
According to the latest official data, France had 133 new coronavirus patients admitted to hospital in 24 hours, and 17 more people in intensive care, for a total of 482.
After India registered more than 600 deaths in a single day, 125 million people in the eastern state of Bihar began a new 15-day lockdown on Thursday.
In Australia, where Victoria has recorded 317 new cases, the highest number of daily cases in the country during the pandemic, officials have said they are waiting to see the impact of recently introduced new restrictions before deciding whether it may be necessary to move to an even tighter “stage four” regime, the details of which have yet to be disclosed.
Amid continuing resurgences around the world the issue of wearing masks has been thrust to the forefront as countries attempt to balance reopening their economies with suppressing the virus.
In the US, which has seen widespread resistance among some to masks for partisan political reasons – after they were associated with an infringement of personal liberties – even some conservative states have begun saying that mask wearing could become obligatory.
Governors in Alabama and Montana said on Wednesday that people would be obliged to wear masks while in public after Alabama recorded a new single-day rise in Covid-19 deaths and Montana hit a new high for cases, meaning that nearly half of all states now have a mask mandate.
The issue of making it mandatory has been controversial, with one European expert saying the regulation requiring masks to be warn in shops and supermarkets in England could backfire.
Dr Agoritsa Baka, the chief expert on emergency preparedness at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), said persuasion could be more effective, given the evident difficulties in policing the rule.
Meanwhile, Russia’s official coronavirus case tally reached 752,797 on Thursday, the fourth largest in the world, after authorities reported 6,428 new cases in the last 24 hours. In their daily readout, officials said 167 people had died overnight, pushing the official death toll to 11,937.
And adding to the understanding of how the disease works, researchers in Italy have established that Covid-19 was found to be the direct cause of death – rather than being a contributory factor – in 89% of the pandemic’s victims in the country, according to the higher health institute and national statistics agency.
