Global death toll passes 34,000 and 725,000 have been infected as 3bn people live in isolation

This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

Europe’s largest capital and Africa’s most populous city have gone into lockdown as countries across the globe including the US prolonged and tightened already strict confinement orders in an effort to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Moscow imposed strict isolation measures on Monday after many residents ignored official requests to stay indoors, confining citizens to their homes unless for a medical emergency, to travel to essential jobs, shop for food or medicines or walk their dogs.

At the request of the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, regional authorities across Russia started preparing similar orders as the country began a “non-working” week declared by the president, Vladimir Putin.

“I ask you to take these forced but absolutely necessary measures ... very seriously and completely responsibly,” Putin said. Facial recognition cameras will police the measures in the capital, which has reported more than 1,000 confirmed cases.

Quick guide What are coronavirus symptoms and should I go to a doctor? Show Hide What is Covid-19? Covid-19 is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a pandemic. What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes? According to the WHO, the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are fever, tiredness and a dry cough. Some patients may also have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion and aches and pains or diarrhoea. Some people report losing their sense of taste and/or smell. About 80% of people who get Covid-19 experience a mild case – about as serious as a regular cold – and recover without needing any special treatment. About one in six people, the WHO says, become seriously ill. The elderly and people with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, or chronic respiratory conditions, are at a greater risk of serious illness from Covid-19. In the UK, the National health Service (NHS) has identified the specific symptoms to look for as experiencing either: a high temperature - you feel hot to touch on your chest or back

a new continuous cough - this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work, and there is currently no vaccine. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough? Medical advice varies around the world - with many countries imposing travel bans and lockdowns to try and prevent the spread of the virus. In many place people are being told to stay at home rather than visit a doctor of hospital in person. Check with your local authorities. In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days. If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.

On the other side of the world in Nigeria, the 21 million inhabitants of Lagos, which has recorded one death from Covid-19, prepared to enter a two-week lockdown on Monday night. Experts have warned the measure could prove almost impossible to enforce in a city where millions live in poverty and rely on daily earnings to survive.

In the US, where Donald Trump on Sunday extended emergency physical distancing restrictions until 30 April, Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said on Monday that if the country did things “almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities”.

The number of confirmed cases in the US has passed 140,000 with more than 2,500 deaths. A 1,000-berth US navy hospital ship with 12 operating rooms, the USNS Comfort, pulled into a cruise ship terminal in New York on Monday, while a 68-bed field hospital designed as a respiratory care unit has been put up in Central Park.

According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, the coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 740,000 people and killed more than 35,000. Nearly 3.5 billion people around the world are living in voluntary or mandatory confinement.

Coronavirus mapped: which countries have the most cases and deaths? Read more

Of Europe’s worst-affected countries, Spain, which on Monday joined the US and Italy in surpassing the number of cases in China, where the virus originated, began its first day of even more restrictive lockdown after the government banned all bar essential workers from leaving their homes.

The Spanish health ministry said 812 people had died from the virus between Sunday and Monday, a slight fall on the previous 24 hours, bringing the country’s total to 7,340 with 85,195 confirmed cases.

In Italy, which accounts for almost a third of all global deaths from Covid-19, the health minister, Roberto Speranza, said that “all containment measures would be extended at least until Easter”, which falls on 12 April.

The country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said any easing of containment measures would be done incrementally. The near three-week shutdown “had been very tough economically”, Conte told Spain’s El País newspaper.

“It cannot last very long,” he said. “We can study ways [of lifting restrictions]. But it will have to be done gradually.”

Italy’s death toll also rose by 812 to 11,591, reversing two days of declines in the daily rate, but the number of new cases increased by just 2% to 101,739, the lowest since 17 March.

The strains on Italian society imposed by the country’s near-total lockdown, however, are starting to show: in Sicily, armed police began guarding entrances to supermarkets after local media reported looting by people who could no longer afford food.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People walk along a closed market during lockdown in Lagos. Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters

In other developments:

France’s death toll of 418 in the past 24 hours was the highest so far, bringing its tally to 3,024 with 44,550 confirmed cases.

Hungary’s parliament passed a state of emergency without a time limit that allows the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree.

Austria is to hand facial masks to shoppers before they enter supermarkets.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, went into self-isolation after coming into contact with infected people.

Iran’s official death toll reached 2,757, with more than 40,000 confirmed cases.

New York state’s death toll from coronavirus climbed above 1,000, less than a month after the disease was first detected in the state.

Tokyo has recorded its biggest daily increase in cases and Japan will expand its entry ban to include citizens travelling from the US, China, South Korea and most of Europe.

Vietnam’s prime minister has asked major cities to prepare for lockdowns.

South Korea is to provide emergency cash payments to many families.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will open on 23 July next year.

The UN called for a $2.5tn aid package to help developing countries, including debt cancellation and a health recovery “Marshall Plan”.

In China, meanwhile, where the pandemic originated, authorities on Monday reported 31 new confirmed coronavirus cases, all bar one of them imported, the fourth consecutive daily fall.

The city of Wuhan, at the centre of the outbreak, reported no new cases for a sixth day. Businesses were reopening and residents set about resuming a more normal life after a lockdown that has lasted almost two months.

In a further indication of the devastating economic impact of the pandemic, the budget airline EasyJet said on Monday it had grounded its entire fleet of aircraft for at least two months in response to the destruction of demand for air travel.