News in brief

A ministerial meeting with the participation of Bank of Greece officials and the heads of the 4 systemic banks will take place today, to discuss ways to enhance the economy and to provide liquidity in enterprises mostly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Confirmed global death toll exceeds 250,000. According to research by both the Reuters news agency and Johns Hopkins University, at least a quarter of a million people are now known to have died as a result of the pandemic. The total number of cases stands at 3,582,469. Experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic. The Johns Hopkins researchers put the known death toll at 251,510.

Hong Kong economy suffers deepest contraction. Hong Kong’s economy, already damaged by months of protest before the coronavirus outbreak, has recorded its worst decline on record.The region’s GDP shrunk 8.9% year-on-year in the first quarter, the deepest contraction since records began in 1974, and the fourth consecutive quarter to drop.
French hospital discovers Covid-19 case from December. The hospital retested old samples from pneumonia patients and discovered that it treated a man who had Covid-19 as early as 27 December, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.

Italy’s death toll far higher than reported. Statistics bureau ISTAT said its analysis showed an extra 11,600 deaths were unaccounted for, and it was reasonable to assume these people either died of Covid-19 without being tested or that the extra stress on the health system due to the epidemic meant they died of other causes they were not treated for.

Health Ministry’s coronavirus spokesman and infectious diseases professor Sotiris Tsiodras on Monday evening announced 6 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Greece in the last 24 hours, and 2 new deaths.
The Covid-19 infections total in Greece stands at 2,632.
Fatalities stand at 146 since the start of the outbreak; 39 of them were women.

The US has said it wants to borrow a record $3tn in the second quarter, as coronavirus-related rescue packages blow up the budget.
The sum is more than five times the previous quarterly record, set at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.
In all of 2019, the country borrowed $1.28tn. The US has approved about $3tn in virus-related relief, including health funding and direct payouts.
Total US government debt is now near $25tn.

The prime minister participated in the Coronovirus Global Response on Monday, a great Donor Conference, an initiative taken by the European Commission, leaders of EU member states, the UN, the World Health Organization, the G20 presidency and others. The Donors’ Marathon, which calls for solidarity between governments and individuals, raised 7.4 billion euros to support the World Health Organization’s initiative to develop rapid and equal access to safe and effective diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19. But also in the development of a vaccine against coronavirus. Greece donated 3 million euros for that purpose.

The European Union needs to decide on new health protocols that will allow tourists to travel again, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an interview with CNN aired on Monday.
Asked about tourism, which makes up about 18 percent of the country’s economy, he said that in the “best-case scenario,” Greece would be to open on July 1, even though the exact date also depends on the airlines and the implementation of strict health protocols in foreign flights.

And the weather forecast….
Sunny in Attica today with the temperature expected to reach a maximum of 23 degrees Celsius.