The Economist Continental Europe Edition September 26, 2020

The WHO said that the global number of new infections had reached a weekly high of 2m. In the Netherlands the number of new cases hit a weekly record of nearly 13,500, up by 60% from the previous week. The number of daily corona-virus infections reached a new high in Israel. Officials say hospitals are approaching their capacity. The government tightened a nationwide lockdown. Iran reported its most cases in a day. Its official cumulative total is now 433,000, though the true figure is much higher. UEFA, Europe’s football governing body, was criticised for allowing 20,000 fans to attend a match in Budapest between Bayern Munich and Sevilla. America’s Centres for Disease Control issued advice for Halloween. Trick-or-treating, costume masks and parties are discouraged; carving pumpkins with your family is okay. For our latest…

Politics Donald Trump marshalled enough Republican votes in the Senate to consider a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election on November 3rd. Ms Ginsburg’s death gives the party a window to fill her seat on the Supreme Court with a conservative, further tipping its ideological balance to the right. Ms Ginsburg, appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993, was accorded the honour of lying in state in the Capitol building, the first woman to do so. A grand jury found no evidence to bring charges against three policemen for the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a black woman, in Kentucky. Around midnight on March 13th police burst into Taylor’s flat without knocking to search for drugs. Her boyfriend, who later said he feared it was her ex-boyfriend breaking in,…

Politics Donald Trump marshalled enough Republican votes in the Senate to consider a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election on November 3rd. Ms Ginsburg’s death gives the party a window to fill her seat on the Supreme Court with a conservative, further tipping its ideological balance to the right. Ms Ginsburg, appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993, was accorded the honour of lying in state in the Capitol building, the first woman to do so. A grand jury found no evidence to bring charges against three policemen for the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a black woman, in Kentucky. Around midnight on March 13th police burst into Taylor’s flat without knocking to search for drugs. Her boyfriend, who later said he feared it was her ex-boyfriend breaking in, opened fire.…

WITHIN THE next few days the global recorded deaths from covid-19 will surpass 1m. Perhaps another 1m have gone unrecorded. Since the start of the pandemic, nine months ago, the weekly cases logged by the World Health Organisation have been trending very slowly upwards and, in the seven days to September 20th, breached 2m for the first time. The virus is burning through parts of the emerging world. India has been registering over 90,000 cases a day. Some European countries that thought they had suppressed the disease are in the throes of a second wave. In America the official death toll this week exceeded 200,000; the seven-day case total is rising in 26 states. Those figures represent a lot of suffering. Roughly 1% of survivors have long-term viral damage such as…

The WHO said that the global number of new infections had reached a weekly high of 2m. In the Netherlands the number of new cases hit a weekly record of nearly 13,500, up by 60% from the previous week. The number of daily corona-virus infections reached a new high in Israel. Officials say hospitals are approaching their capacity. The government tightened a nationwide lockdown. Iran reported its most cases in a day. Its official cumulative total is now 433,000, though the true figure is much higher. UEFA, Europe’s football governing body, was criticised for allowing 20,000 fans to attend a match in Budapest between Bayern Munich and Sevilla. America’s Centres for Disease Control issued advice for Halloween. Trick-or-treating, costume masks and parties are discouraged; carving pumpkins with your family is…

THIS CORONAVIRUS affects everyone, but not equally. The young often shrug off the virus; the old often die of it. The rich shrug off the economic shock; the poor cannot. Because of covid-19, the number of extremely poor people (ie, those making less than $1.90 a day) will rise by 70m-100m this year, the World Bank predicts. Using a broader measure, including those who lack basic shelter or clean water and children who go hungry, the ranks of the poor will swell by 240m-490m this year, says the UN. That could reverse almost a decade of progress (see International section). If a vaccine is found, economies will no doubt bounce back. But widespread vaccination will take years and the very poor cannot wait that long. By then, malnutrition will have…