COVID 19. Health workers wearing protective equipment walk behind glasses inside a hospital where patients infected with the COVID-19 are being treated in Khimki, outside Moscow on May 3, 2020 amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus. Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP
Despite the dire news, President Donald Trump insisted next year would be"phenomenal" for the economy in a country where the virus has killed more than 75,000, telling reporters:"I think it's going to come back blazing." Russia, which usually hosts grand military parades for the event a day later than the rest of Europe, finds itself at the centre of the pandemic crisis.
Elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, parades were held only in Turkmenistan and Belarus – where President Alexander Lukashenko said he had"no choice" as"the eyes of those Soviet soldiers who perished for our freedom are watching".As many Americans and Russians faced up to an intense barrage of deaths and new cases, Brazil also emerged as a potential global concern.
And the dire economic forecasts got even worse on Friday, with the International Monetary Fund saying it had been too optimistic when it predicted the world economy would contract by three percent this year. "The novel coronavirus outbreak was a big test that revealed China still has shortcomings in its major epidemic prevention and control system, public health systems and other aspects of responding,"But far from bringing the world together, the crisis has triggered a war of words between Trump and China.