SOUTHERN Europe is buckling under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic, with patients filling the wards of hospitals in Spain and Italy as the global death toll passed 10,000 people and numbers infected reached 244,000,

The World Health Organisation noted the dramatic speed of the virus’s spread, saying: “It took over three months to reach the first 10,000 confirmed cases, and only 12 days to reach the next 100,000.”

The WHO released new protocols to help countries identify the extent of Covid-19 infection among their populations, which age groups are most affected and the percentage of people who are infected without symptoms.

In Bergamo, the epicentre of the virus in Italy, cemeteries were overwhelmed. Video from inside the city’s main hospital showed patients lined up in a narrow ward, struggling for breath as doctors and nurses moved from one beeping machine to the next.

Wuhan, the city in China where the outbreak began, offered a ray of hope with no new infections reported for a second day in a row and only 39 cases nationwide – all of them brought from the outside, the government said.

The effects of a global economy grinding to a halt were also taking a toll, and the UN chief warned of a looming global recession “perhaps of record dimensions”.

In a measure of how the fortunes of East and West have shifted, a Chinese Red Cross official heading an aid delegation to Milan castigated Italians for failing to take their national lockdown seriously.

Spanish health minister Salvador Illa said the army will help set up a field hospital of 5500 beds and intensive care units inside a convention centre in Madrid.