The coronavirus pandemic has killed over 60,000 people worldwide, nearly three quarters of them in Europe, since it emerged in China in December, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 1330 GMT Saturday from official sources.
A total of 60,457 deaths have been recorded, including44,132 in Europe, the continent worst hit by the virus. The official talliesprobably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of cases.
With 14,681 deaths, Italy is the country with the highestdeath toll, followed by Spain (11,744), the United States (7,159), France(6,507) and Britain (4,313).
Since COVID-19 first emerged, 1,130,204 cases have beendeclared officially in the world, with more than half of them in Europe(610,846).
There have been 290,219 in the United States and Canada(7,325 deaths between them) and 115,777 cases in Asia (4,124 deaths).
ICJ seeks ‘exemplary damages’ on China for ‘spreading’coronavirus
The London-based International Council of Jurists has urgedthe UN Human Rights Council to make China pay “exemplary damages” for its”grave offences against humanity”, alleging the coronavirus pandemic isprimarily a conspiracy of Beijing to catapult itself as a superpower.
“Chinese government’s inaction in arresting the spread ofthe virus has resulted in recession across the world and loss of trillions ofdollars and rendered jobless millions of workers in India and rest of theworld,” ICJ President Adish C Aggarwala said.
It remains a mystery as to how the virus has not spread inall provinces of China but at the same time, has spread to all countries in theworld, he said.
He urged the Geneva-based human rights body’s interventionto hold China, its army and the Wuhan-based land responsible for the spread ofthe virus, which has killed over 50,000 people globally and brought the worldto a grinding halt.
Aggarwala sought direction from the UNHRC to China to pay”exemplary damages to the entire world and in particular to India” forspreading the disease.””This pandemic declared by the WHO is primarilydue to conspiracy of Chinese government aimed at catapulting itself to theposition of a superpower of the world and undermining other countries throughbiological warfare and gross negligence and incompetence of Chinese governmentand their authorities to alert the WHO and rest of the world,” Aggarwala saidin a statement.