Briefly

INDIA

Ministers in hospital; cases hit 1.8 million

India's interior minister and the chiefs of two big states have been hospitalized with COVID-19 as the country's daily cases topped 50,000 for a fifth straight day on Monday. The country reported 52,972 new confirmed infections in the latest 24-hour period, taking the total to 1.8 million, data from India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare showed on Monday. India has the third-most infections after the United States and Brazil. On Sunday, Federal Interior Minister Amit Shah, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's closest aides, as well as the chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka, were admitted to hospital. The chief of the central state of Madhya Pradesh is also recovering in hospital. It was not immediately clear whether Shah's Cabinet colleagues, including the finance minister, had isolated themselves.

ITALY

Genoa bridge rebuilt after deadly collapse

Just two years after part of Genoa's Morandi Bridge collapsed killing 43 people, a new structure was scheduled to open in its place on Monday, an achievement in stark contrast to stalled infrastructure projects elsewhere in Italy. The kilometer-long bridge, designed by star architect Renzo Piano, replaced the old motorway viaduct that broke apart in the port city on Aug 14, 2018, in one of Italy's worst civil disasters in decades. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the new Genova-San Giorgio viaduct would be a "symbol of a new Italy rising up again". For the mayor of Genoa and state-appointed commissioner for bridge reconstruction, Marco Bucci, the case is both an example of decadeslong failures in Italy's transport infrastructure and a demonstration of what the country is capable of accomplishing. "There's a feeling of both regret for what happened and pride in the work that's been done," he said. "We've worked and shown Italian excellence."

NORWAY

40 infections traced back to cruise liner

At least 40 passengers and crew from a luxury cruise liner have tested positive for COVID-19 and the authorities are still trying to trace a number of passengers from two recent Arctic voyages, public health officials in Norway said on Sunday. Four crew members on the MS Roald Amundsen were hospitalized on Friday when the ship arrived at the port of Tromsoe, and later diagnosed with the respiratory illness. Tests showed a further 32 of the 158 staff were also infected. While the crew was quarantined on the ship, the 178 passengers who arrived on Friday were allowed to disembark before anyone had been diagnosed, triggering a complex operation to locate them in order to contain any potential spread. So far, four of the combined 387 passengers traveling on the ship on two separate cruises since July 17 have been found to carry the virus.

Agencies - Xinhua