“The world is in a dangerous new phase,” said WHO at a press conference.
Geneva, Switzerland:
The World Health Organization warned on Friday of a “new dangerous phase” of the coronavirus pandemic with people tired of blockages despite the accelerated spread of the disease.
The warning came when it appeared that the virus was present in Italy in December, months before its first confirmed cases and around the time the disease was first reported in China.
The virus, which has now killed more than 454,000 people and infected 8.4 million people worldwide, is on the rise in the Americas and parts of Asia as Europe begins to relax restrictive measures .
The blockages imposed to stop the spread of the disease have caused crippling economic damage, but WHO said the pandemic remains a major threat.
“The world is in a new and dangerous phase. Many people are tired of being at home … but the virus continues to spread quickly,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at the conference. ‘a virtual press conference.
A vaccine remains at best in months despite several trials, while scientists discover even more about the virus, its symptoms and the extent to which it has spread before being identified.
Italian wastewater
Italian researchers discovered genetic traces of SARS-CoV-2 – as the virus is officially known – in wastewater samples collected in Milan and Turin late last year, and in Bologna in January, a said the ISS institute.
The first confirmed cases in Italy were not until February.
The results “help to understand the beginning of the circulation of the virus in Italy”, according to the ISS.
Italy was the first European country affected by the virus and the first in the world to impose a national ban in early March.
Many European countries have followed suit and most have only started to reopen this month after painful closings that devastated their economies.
Faced with the biggest recession in EU history, leaders held a virtual summit on Friday on the European Commission’s proposal for a 750 billion euro ($ 840 billion) rescue fund.
However, they failed to reach agreement on a plan that was seen as a key gesture of solidarity and unity for the struggling bloc.
The opposition is fierce on the part of the “four bursars” – the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria – who have promised to fight to curb spending.
On the other side are countries like Italy and Spain that have been the first and the hardest hit by the pandemic, having already been crippled by overburdened finances.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was “not sure” that there would be an agreement when the leaders were to meet in person in mid-July, adding that it might not even be finalized until summer.
“Coming from Europe”
Chinese scientists said the virus likely emerged from a market selling wild animals in the central city of Wuhan in December, but Beijing officials recently suggested it could have come from elsewhere.
Having largely mastered the virus and eased restrictions, China is now fighting a resurgence of the coronavirus after finding a market-centered cluster in the capital Beijing.
Authorities have launched a national campaign to inspect food imports, while tens of thousands of people are also being tested and neighborhoods have been closed and schools closed.
Chinese authorities have said studies of the genome data, which it shared with the WHO, suggest that the new epidemic in Beijing “came from Europe”, but is different from what is currently spreading there. low.
“It is older than the virus currently circulating in Europe,” said Zhang Yong of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
He raised the possibility that the virus is hiding in imported frozen food or on the wholesale market itself, which leads to similarities with older strains.
– “Better control” –
The disease continues to plague elsewhere.
The United States continues to lead the world in terms of the number of confirmed infections and deaths, with a recent surge in the southern states, while the economy was also hit in a year when the President Donald Trump is seeking re-election.
However, the best American expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, offered a ray of hope, as said in an interview with AFP, that he did not see America returning to a new lock.
He predicted that he would focus instead on “trying to better control the regions of the country that appear to have an outbreak.”
Fauci said he was optimistic that the world would soon have a vaccine to end the pandemic, calling the results of the first trials “encouraging”.
– Kiss –
Normality however comes back to cultural and sporting events disrupted by the virus.
Football returned to hard-hit South America on Thursday after a three-month hiatus with a Rio State tournament match in Brazil.
And in France, a nation of great love, the actors have started kissing again on the set.
“No, the kiss is not over,” said French Minister of Culture Franck Riester, when asked if social estrangement could completely kill love scenes.
The actors must however be tested before starting to kiss again.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
