Since midnight on Thursday, the five million inhabitants of Melbourne can only leave their homes for essential reasons due to a new confinement, decided after an aggravation of the epidemic due to the coronavirus and this for six weeks.

Police patrols criss-cross Australia's second city, the main focus of the epidemic with 860 cases, and checkpoints have been built on major routes. The security forces refused to say whether violators had been arrested or fined.

Cafes, bars, restaurants and gyms that had reopened recently had to close again. According to Daniel Andrews, Prime Minister of the State of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, this is the only possible solution because otherwise, "potentially", there will be "thousands and thousands of cases" more.

"The rest of the country knows that the sacrifice you are experiencing right now is not only for you and your own family, but for the Australian community as a whole," also said Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The head of government had announced a few hours earlier that the return of Australians currently abroad would probably be regulated. He will notably propose on Friday a reduction in charter flights for their repatriation.

The border between the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, and that of New South Wales was closed Tuesday evening. City health officials reported 134 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday. They had reported 191 the day before, a record.

An outbreak of infections in the United States

After its divorce from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States remains the country hardest hit by the disease, in number of infections as in number of deaths. 

The epidemic has so far left 132,195 people dead in the world's leading economic power and 3,046,351 cases of contamination had been detected there Wednesday evening.

After stabilization of the epidemic in its first outbreaks, especially in New York, the country has been facing an outbreak of infections in the South and West for a few weeks. Several states have thus been forced to suspend their deconfinement process.

President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday called on schools in the country to reopen, denies the reality of this rebound: "the death rate from coronavirus (a) has been divided by ten!", He tweeted.

The number of cases also soared in Tulsa, Oklahoma, just over two weeks after a campaign meeting organized by Donald Trump in this city, according to local health authorities.

In this tense context, the WHO warned against the probable ability of the virus to be transmitted by air, especially in public places, that is to say in a much more contagious way than initially envisaged.

A worrying situation in Latin America and the Caribbean

The epidemic continues to ravage Latin America and the Caribbean, where more than three million cases of Covid-19 have been identified, more than half of them in Brazil. Second most affected country, the latter lists 67,964 deaths for 1,713,160 cases but Jair Bolsonaro, its 65-year-old president, even contaminated, remains defiant: "I am perfectly fine", he assured.

Peru surpassed the 11,000 dead mark a week after initiating gradual deconfinement, and Mexico recorded a new daily record of 6,995 cases on Wednesday. And official figures jump in Venezuela: more than 1,500 sick on June 1, more than 7,000 a month later.

By far the most affected country in the Near and Middle East, Iran has surpassed the 12,000 dead mark, authorities announced on Wednesday.

Africa remains far behind, both in terms of declared contamination and deaths due to Covid-19, but the continent crossed the barrier of 500,000 cases on Wednesday, after having exceeded 10,000 deaths on July 1.

In Europe, the situation seems to be under control, even if the Old Continent remains the hardest hit by the virus with more than 200,000 deaths, including more than two thirds in the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Spain.

With AFP and Reuters

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