WHO warns virus may be here to stay
THE new coronavirus may never go away and populations will have to learn to live with it just as they have HIV, the World Health Organisation ( WHO) has warned, as the global death toll from the disease nears 300,000.
There were also gloomy forecasts from the US Federal Reserve (Fed), which said prolonged shutdowns to stem the spread of the virus could cause lasting economic damage in the country.
The US logged more than 1,800 deaths on Wednesday, bringing the nation’s total to 84,059.
A vaccine could allow countries and economies to fully re-open from lockdowns and potentially earn millions of dollars for its creators.
But the WHO said the v irus may never be wiped out ent i rely.
“This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away,” said Michael Ryan, the global health body’s emergencies director in Geneva, Switzerland.
“HIV has not gone away – but we have come to terms with the virus.”
The prospect of the disease hanging around leaves governments across the world facing a delicate balancing act between suppressing the pathogen and getting economies up and running.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing for a swift resumption of economic activity in the country, often against the advice of health officials, as he tries to jumpstart the world’s largest economy before a November election.
Top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has said re-opening too soon risks triggering uncontrollable outbreaks, but Trump on Wednesday dismissed that call for caution as “not acceptable”.
In an excerpt of an interview with Fox Business to air in full on Thursday, Trump said: “I disagree with him on schools.”
The tensions between health and the economy were thrown into sharp relief on Wednesday when Fed chief Jerome Powell warned of a potential “wave of bankruptcies” that could cause lasting harm to the world’s largest economy.
Powell, who has launched a host of key programs to support credit markets and provide funds directly to companies, said there are limits to how far the Fed can go.
“We can make loans to solvent businesses,” Powell said, but cautioned that “the passage of time is all that is needed for a liquidity problem to turn into a solvency problem”.
Re-opening continued in earnest across Europe, with officials pushing ahead with plans to restore summer tourism even as fears persist of a second wave of infections.
Desperate to save millions of jobs, the EU set out proposals for a phased restart of travel, with border controls to be eventually lifted, along with measures to minimise transmission.
Some beaches re-opened in France on Wednesday – but only for swimming and fishing – and people in England were allowed to leave their homes more freely.
But in Latin America the virus continued to surge, with a 60 per cent leap in infections in the Chilean capital of Santiago, prompting authorities to impose a total lockdown on the city.
In Argentina, officials were watching the capital Buenos Aires warily after one of its poorest and most densely populated neighbourhoods showed a increase in cases.
In Thailand, there were no new Covid-19 cases over 24 hours, or any deaths, Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesman of the government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), said on Wednesday.
This marked one of the best days for Thailand since the outbreak of the pandemic.
“This is the first time that there have been no new cases since we started the daily Covid-19 reports.
“It is the best result, thanks to cooperation from the people, but we should not get complacent – we still have to be vigilant,” he said.
He said the first time the CCSA saw zero domestic cases was on May 4, but there were still reports in the state quarantine area.
As the country reported one new case on Thursday, Dr Taweesin urged people to remain on guard against the virus.