The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide yesterday topped 6 million, with Brazil registering another record surge in daily infections, as divisions deepened on how to deal with the pandemic.
Latin American countries are bracing for difficult weeks ahead as the disease spreads rapidly across the region, even as much of the world exits lockdowns that have wrecked economies and stripped millions of their jobs.
In Brazil — the epicenter of South America’s outbreak with nearly 500,000 confirmed cases, lagging behind only the US — disagreement among leaders over lockdown measures has hampered efforts to slow the virus as the number of fatalities in the country nears 30,000.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who fears that the economic fallout from stay-at-home measures would be worse than the virus, has berated governors and mayors for imposing what he calls “the tyranny of total quarantine.”
As the global death toll from the pandemic surpassed 369,000, US President Donald Trump’s decision to permanently cut funding to the WHO has been broadly criticized.
The number of confirmed cases worldwide is more than 6 million, according to an Agence France-Presse tally.
“Now is the time for enhanced cooperation and common solutions,” the EU said in a statement, adding: “Actions that weaken international results must be avoided.”
German Minister of Health Jens Spahn said that the “disappointing” decision was a setback for global health.
Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal, said it was “madness and terrifying both at the same time.”
As the virus progresses at different speeds around the globe, there has been pressure in many countries to lift crippling lockdowns, despite experts’ warnings of a possible second wave of infections.
India on Saturday said it would begin relaxing the world’s biggest lockdown in stages from early this month, even as it marked another record daily rise in infections.
Iran meanwhile announced that collective prayers would resume in mosques, despite infections ticking back upward in the Middle East’s hardest-hit country.
With infection numbers falling in many of Europe’s most-affected countries, the push to restart economies was gaining steam.
Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened on Saturday, while in Paris, parks and the famed Galeries Lafayette department store flung open their doors.
In Austria, hotels and cinemas were allowed to take in customers, provided they wear masks.
“It is very important that things return to normal,” film buff Rotraud Turanitz said at Vienna’s historic Admiral Kino cinema on trendy Burggasse.
Across the Atlantic, the US capital, Washington, resumed outdoor dining, while on the west coast, restaurants and hair salons in Los Angeles reopened.
New York City, the worst-hit US city with about 21,500 coronavirus deaths, is on track to begin reopening the week starting on Monday next week. The overall US death toll has topped 103,000 out of more than 1.7 million cases of the virus.
However, the economic damage from weeks of lockdowns continues to pile up, with Chile and Peru securing credit lines worth billions from the IMF.
India’s economy grew at its slowest pace in two decades in the first quarter, while Canada, Brazil, France and Italy also saw their GDP figures shrink ahead of an expected worldwide recession.
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