• UN: COVID worst global crisis since WWII

NEW YORK (AFP) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the coronavirus pandemic was the worst global crisis since World War II as he expressed concern that it could trigger conflicts around the world.

There are now more than 800,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world and 42,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Guterres said that the scale of the crisis was due to “a disease that represents a threat to everybody in the world and... an economic impact that will bring a recession that probably has no parallel in the recent past.”

“The combination of the two facts and the risk that it contributes to enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict are things that make us believe that this is the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War.”

“A stronger and more effective response... is only possible in solidarity if everybody comes together and if we forget political games and understand that it is humankind that is at stake,” Guterres said.

Meanwhile, China’s National Health Commission reported 130 people over the past day who were infected with the coronavirus but don’t have symptoms, a sign that the group of people who can spread the virus without being detected is sizable.

The tally, the first daily count of so-called asymptomatic patients, establishes a new benchmark to measure the scope of the outbreak amid a growing chorus of domestic and international criticism of China’s data. China late Tuesday said 1,541 asymptomatic people have been put under observation.

The commission also reported 36 new COVID-19 cases — and all but one of the new cases in mainland China was imported from abroad. Seven more deaths from the disease had been reported over the previous 24 hours.