GRIM COVID-19 MILESTONE
CORONAVIRUS CASES EXCEED 10 MILLION WORLDWIDE AMID SURGES IN INDIA, BRAZIL AND U.S.
Global coronavirus cases exceeded 10 million on Sunday according to a Reuters tally, marking a major milestone in the spread of the respiratory disease that has so far killed almost half a million people in seven months.
The figure is roughly double the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to the World Health Organization.
The milestone comes as many hard-hit countries are easing lockdowns while making extensive alterations to work and social life that could last for a year or more until a vaccine is available.
Some countries are experiencing a resurgence in infections, leading authorities to partially reinstate lockdowns, in what experts say could be a recurring pattern in the coming months and into 2021.
North America, Latin America and Europe each account for around 25 per cent of cases, while Asia and the Middle East have around 11 per cent and 9 per cent respectively, according to the Reuters tally, which uses government reports.
There have been more than 497,000 fatalities linked to the disease so far, roughly the same as the number of influenza deaths reported annually.
The first cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed on Jan. 10 in Wuhan in China, before infections and fatalities surged in Europe, then the United States, and later Russia.
The pandemic has now entered a new phase, with India and Brazil battling outbreaks of over 10,000 cases a day, putting a major strain on resources.
The two countries accounted for over a third of all new cases in the past week. Brazil reported a record 54,700 new cases on June 19. Some researchers said the death toll in Latin America could rise to over 380,000 by October, from around 100,000 this week.
The total number of cases continued to increase at a rate of between 1 and 2 per cent a day in the past week, down from rates above 10 per cent in March.
Countries including China, New Zealand and Australia have seen new outbreaks in the past month, despite largely quashing local transmission.
Beijing has ramped up coronavirus testing efforts and has tested about a third of the Chinese capital’s population so far, a city official said on Sunday, as authorities seek to control an outbreak stemming from a wholesale market in mid-june.
As of Sunday noon, Beijing had collected 8.29 million patient samples for testing and completed 7.69 million tests, Zhang Qiang, an official from Beijing’s municipal committee, told a press conference.
“This means we have already tested all the people that need to be tested. We are also rolling out large scale screening to key regions and key populations (of the city) and improve our capability of testing,” said Zhang, adding that Beijing was also receiving medical support from other provinces.
Beijing reported its first case from the outbreak at Xinfadi market on June 11 and 311 people in the city of over 20 million have tested positive for the virus since then.
Zhang added that Beijing’s daily testing capacity has increased to 458,000 per day.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported 2,504,175 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 44,703 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 508 to 125,484.
The surge is likely to continue for weeks after states moved too soon to reopen their economies, two of the country’s leading public health experts said Sunday.
The warnings by Tom Frieden, director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, and Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, came as a new poll showed confidence in how the U.S. is dealing with COVID-19 has fallen. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Frieden said the virus continued to have the “upper hand,” even as he acknowledged Americans had become tired of the restrictions needed to contain it.
“We are moving too fast,” Frieden said of states that remained eager to continue phased reopenings as cases continue to rise. “It’s like leaning into a left hook. You are going to get hit hard. And that’s what is happening.”
U.S. coronavirus cases now exceed 2.5 million, with over 125,000 reported fatalities — in both cases the world’s highest. The country’s inability to control the spread of the virus seems likely to result in U.S. citizens being banned from travelling to Europe, for example, where cases are down in some cases 90 per cent from their peak.
A move by the EU to restrict travel from the U.S. was the inevitable result of the continuing spread in America, Gottlieb said. Growing restrictions on travel within the U.S. could come next, he said.
As of late-afternoon on Sunday, there were 103,250 confirmed cases in Canada, with 8,522 deaths. That’s up from 102,959, with 8,516 deaths, at about the same time on Saturday.