Donald Trump has said the coronavirus epidemic is as under control as it can be in the United States.
The global death toll from the coronavirus topped 700,000 on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, with the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico leading the rise in deaths.
Nearly 5,900 people die every 24 hours from COVID-19 on average, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the past two weeks.
This equates to 247 people per hour, or one person every 15 seconds.
President Donald Trump has said the coronavirus outbreak is as under control as it can be in the United States, where more than 155,000 people have died amid an uneven response to the unfolding public health crisis failed to stem an increase in cases.
“They are dying, that’s right,” Trump said in an interview with the Axios news site. “That’s what it is. But that doesn’t mean we’re not doing all we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it. It’s a horrible plague.”
In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro downplayed the severity of the pandemic and opposed lockdown measures, even as he and several members of his cabinet tested positive for the virus.
The pandemic was initially slower to reach Latin America, home to around 640 million people, than most of the world. But authorities have since struggled to control its spread due to the region’s poverty and densely populated cities.
More than 100 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean live in slums, according to the United Nations Human Settlements Program. Many have jobs in the informal sector with little social safety net and have continued to work throughout the pandemic.
Even in parts of the world that appeared to have held back the spread of the virus, countries recently set one-day records in new cases, signaling that the battle is far from over.
Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel all recently had a record increase in cases.
Australia also reported a record number of new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the country’s total to 247.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
