“It is never too late to reverse the epidemic,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Paris:
The coronavirus pandemic marked another horrific milestone on Monday as the world surpassed the 20 million recorded cases of infection from the tiny killer that has disrupted life just about everywhere.
The number at 10:15 p.m. GMT was 20,002,577 cases, with 733,842 deaths recorded, according to an AFP tally from official sources.
In another staggering milestone, the death toll is expected to exceed 750,000 within days as the global health crisis that began late last year in China rages on.
While other once-unthinkable things have become a harsh reality – having to wear a face mask in tourist spots in Paris, or reserve a spot on Rio’s Copacabana Beach via an app and then social distancing on the sand – the World Health Organization urged people not to do this. despair.
“Behind these statistics, there is a lot of pain and suffering … But I want to be clear: there are green shoots of hope,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“It is never too late to reverse the epidemic,” he said.
He gave examples of countries that have been successful in cracking down on COVID-19, such as Rwanda and New Zealand, which on Monday announced plans to open a virus-free “travel bubble” with the Cook Islands.
As much of the world is caught in a cycle of disheartening epidemics and economically crushing lockdowns, all eyes are on the vaccine race.
A WHO snapshot indicates that 165 vaccine candidates are under development worldwide, six of which are reaching phase 3 clinical evaluation.
But WHO emergency director Michael Ryan warned that a vaccine was “only part of the answer,” naming polio and measles as diseases with vaccines that have not been completely eradicated.
“You have to be able to provide this vaccine to a population that wants and demands this vaccine,” he said.
– Europe is feeling the heat –
Infections have increased worryingly in Western Europe, which has also been suffocating in a heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius (95 F).
The scorching heat brought crowds to the beaches this weekend despite health warnings about the risk of infection.
In the Paris region, people aged 11 and over are now required to wear masks in crowded areas and tourist hotspots.
These include the banks of the Seine and over 100 streets in the French capital.
Marion, 24 from central Paris, said the masks are “restrictive” but necessary “if we are to avoid a second wave”.
“Everything but a second lockdown,” she added.
Several French cities have already introduced similar measures, as well as parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain.
In Berlin, thousands of children returned to school on Monday after the summer holidays, wearing sports masks, compulsory in common areas such as schoolyards.
Greece, meanwhile, announced a nighttime curfew for restaurants and bars in some of its main tourist destinations after the number of new cases increased.
In Italy, the coronavirus peaks of its neighbors have raised the alarm.
“France, Spain and the Balkans … Italy is surrounded by contagions”, lamented the Italian Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza.
It was a different story in Pakistan, which allowed all restaurants and parks to reopen on Monday, after the country saw a drop in new cases over several weeks.
– Major milestones in the United States and Brazil –
As of Monday evening, the United States – the worst-affected country in the world – had recorded 163,370 deaths and 5,085,821 cases of infection, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
As the workload surpassed five million on Sunday, President Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent in the presidential election, Joe Biden, tweeted that the number “blew your mind and breaks your heart.”
The figure came as Trump was accused of flouting the constitution by unilaterally expanding a virus relief program.
The package – announced by Trump on Saturday after talks between Republican and Democratic lawmakers hit a wall – was “absurdly unconstitutional,” Senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi told CNN.
But as the world‘s largest economy still struggles to extricate itself from a huge hole, Democrats have appeared nervous over any legal challenge to a relief program they deem woefully inadequate.
After the United States, Brazil has the most cases, and over the weekend it became the second country to kill 100,000.
President Jair Bolsonaro downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, and after Brazil’s latest milestone, the country’s most-watched TV channel Globo asked: “Did the president do his duty?”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
