Britain reported 960 new coronavirus deaths on Saturday (File)
Brasilia, Brazil:
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has exceeded six million as the disease spreads rapidly in Latin America and political leaders are fighting over how to deal with the pandemic.
Much of the world is moving at varying speeds to lift the bottlenecks that have destroyed economies and cut millions of jobs while Muslims in Jerusalem and other cities gathered in recently reopened mosques on Sunday.
But in Brazil – the epicenter of the epidemic in South America with nearly 5,000,000 confirmed cases, lagging behind the United States – disagreement between its leaders on the locking measures has hampered efforts to slow the epidemic.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who says the economic fallout from home orders will be worse than the virus, chastised governors and mayors for imposing what he calls “the tyranny of total quarantine.”
Even if his country surpassed France to have the fourth largest number in the world with nearly 30,000 dead, the populist on the right called for the resumption of the football season in Brazil.
In neighboring Bolivia, the government is expected to lift containment measures on Monday, but four of the country’s nine regions – including the hardest hit Santa Cruz de la Sierra – have said they will defy order and extend the restrictions.
On Sunday, Pope Francis prayed for the “particularly vulnerable” natives of the Amazon in his first address to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square in almost three months.
The Pope said earlier that “everything will be different” after the pandemic, which has killed nearly 3,770,000 people.
“From the great trials of humanity – among them this pandemic – one emerges better or worse. You do not come out the same.”
“Conflict, Trump, inequality”
But the disputes that have dominated the world for a long time have continued to arouse our heads this weekend.
The opening of the Al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem on Sunday was marred by rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Israeli soldiers were posted at the gates of the third holiest site in Islam a few hours after an Israeli police officer shot dead a disabled Palestinian man in East Jerusalem, in the neighboring annex.
President Donald Trump faced a violent reaction after again rejecting an international bond, permanently cutting funding to the World Health Organization.
US President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of not doing enough to curb the early spread of the virus and of being too lenient with China, where the disease first emerged late last year.
It is a blow to the UN health agency – the United States is by far its biggest contributor – and the European Union has urged Trump to reconsider, calling for international solidarity.
And the crisis has further deepened inequality, dividing the global workforce in two: those who have the capacity to work from home and those who do not.
Motorcycle taxi driver Thanapat Noidee, who shares a small cabin in Bangkok with his wife and children, said his normal income of $ 31 a day had been cut in half.
“Without food donations, I will have to fight harder for my family to survive,” said Thanapat as the Thai parliament approved a record economic recovery plan of nearly $ 60 billion.
“Ease of locking”
In countries where the coronavirus appears to have declined, pressure has been exerted to ease restrictions, despite the lack of a vaccine and experts warning of a possible second wave of infections.
In Britain, which registered 960 new deaths on Saturday before starting to lift the lock on Monday, senior government advisers have warned it is going too fast.
“COVID-19 is spreading too quickly to lift the foreclosure in England,” tweeted Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government’s science emergency advisory group.
In Paris, the parks opened the weekend for the first time in months, in front of the restaurants, cafes and bars which reopen on Tuesday on the sidewalks and terraces.
The Spanish minority government has said it will ask for a final two-week extension to lock it in, but it will need the support of Parliament.
India has announced that it will start easing the world‘s largest lock in stages starting in early June, as it marks a new record increase in infections per day.
Bangladesh lifted its lockdown on Sunday, with millions of people returning to work in densely populated cities even as the country recorded record peaks in new deaths and infections.
“I tried to avoid the crowd when I went to my office. But social distancing is impossible on the paths of Dhaka,” banker Badrul Islam told AFP.
In the United States, Washington DC and Los Angeles have resumed outdoor dining, while New York is in the process of reopening starting the week of June 8.
After largely lifting its restrictions, Iran crossed the grim milestone of 150,000 virus deaths on Sunday as the hardest hit country in the Middle East struggles to contain a recent upward trend.
“A beautiful feeling”
Economic damage continues to accumulate, with India, Canada, Brazil, France and Italy recording a drop in GDP in the first quarter before an expected global recession.
The recession has decimated the aviation industry and Emirates Airline announced on Sunday that it would cut “a few” jobs, a disturbing statement from the largest carrier in the Middle East which employs around 100,000 people.
World worshipers are slowly coming together as countries like Iran and Turkey have allowed collective prayers to resume in mosques.
In Saudi Arabia, worshipers dressed in masks rushed to mosques that opened nationwide on Sunday – except in the holy city of Mecca.
“I prayed, God be praised, in the neighborhood mosque … and it was a great feeling,” said one worshiper.
“But I swear to God that some people don’t care about anything. No mask. No carpet.”
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
