AP PHOTOS: Virus overwhelms health workers, marches westward
Posted March 30, 2020 7:00 am
Tales of grim scenes have emerged from Italian and Spanish hospitals, where the sick have sometimes been left to crowd hallways and doctors and nurses have worked beyond the point of exhaustion to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
The virus continued its march westward, and the United States overtook China in recent days as the country with the most reported infections. New York's health care workers began to see a surge in cases and worried that they, too, would become overwhelmed.
Restrictions have begun to be put in place in Mexico, but shutting down the Latin American country, where many people live day-to-day off what they earn in the streets, is going to be harder than in Europe or the United States.
Meanwhile, virus prevention measures have taken a violent turn in parts of Africa. A day after South Africa's three-week lockdown began, military troops raided a large workers' hostel in the Alexandra township where some residents had defied the new restrictions.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and death. The vast majority of people recover.
People wearing protective clothing carry the body of a victim who died after being infected with the new coronavirus at a cemetery just outside Tehran, Iran, March 30, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
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David Vazquez, a street performer dressed as the Joker, waits in hopes of pedestrians who will pay to take pictures with him in Mexico City, March 23, 2020. Vazquez, who also worked as a trainer in a gym until it shut down today, said business for street performers has plummeted, with the few clients still stopping opting to take their pictures from a distance or posing beside him awkwardly, amid the worldwide spread of the new coronavirus. "We have to pay rent, light, gas, telephone," said Vazquez. "Where will we get that money? We all want to work." (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
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A woman stands inside a sterilization chamber set up at the arrival hall of Juanda International Airport amid new coronavirus outbreak, in Surabaya, Indonesia, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo)
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South African National Defense Forces patrol the Men's Hostel in the densely populated Alexandra township east of Johannesburg, March 28, 2020, enforcing a strict lockdown in an effort to control the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
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An elderly COVID-19 patient sits inside an ambulance as he waits to be transferred from a Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
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Children's playground toys are closed as a deterrent to help curb the spread of the coronavirus in Hong Kong, March 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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A volunteer nurse wearing a mask tends to homeless in Milan, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
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Medical and physician assistant students wear personal protective equipment as they prepare to screen for possible coronavirus cases at a makeshift camp for the homeless, March 28, 2020, in Las Vegas. Officials opened part of a city parking lot as a makeshift homeless shelter after a local shelter closed when a man staying there tested positive for coronavirus. (AP Photo/John Locher)
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A local volunteer carries a package with soap and detergent to be distributed in an effort to stop the spread of the new coronavirus in the Rocinha slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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French tenor singer Stephane Senechal sings from his apartment window in Paris, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
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Jaime Ramirez feeds his son Gabriel in Chia, Colombia, March 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
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A volunteer with the Red Cross sorts homemade face masks meant to be sterilized and distributed among people in need in Prague, Czech Republic, March 27, 2020. In Czech Republic it is mandatory that all people must cover their mouths and noses in public to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus called COVID-19. Improvised methods such as a scarf or homemade mask are allowed. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
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A man walks alone on the promenade under the FDR drive in Lower Manhattan, March 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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A priest and relatives pray as a victim of the COVID-19 is buried by undertakers at the Almudena cemetery in Madrid, Spain, March 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Olmo Calvo)
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A woman wearing a mask crosses the street in front of a mural about traffic accidents reading, "NOT ONE MORE DEATH" in the Brooklyn borough of New York, March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
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People wearing protective masks walk through La Vega market in Santiago, Chile, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
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Medical staff at the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic on the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, March 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
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Coffins arriving from the Bergamo area, where the coronavirus infections caused many victims, are being unloaded from a military truck that transported them in the cemetery of Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan in Northern Italy, March 27, 2020. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)
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A road is seen deserted in Mumbai, India, Friday, March 27, 2020. An unprecedented order keeping India's 1.3 billion people at home for all but essential trips to places like markets or pharmacies is meant to keep the virus from surging and overwhelming an already strained health care system. India's finance ministry announced a 1.7 trillion ($22 billion) economic stimulus package that will include delivering grains and lentil rations for three months to 800 million people, some 60% of the world's second-most populous country. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
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