Virus cases pass 6m, but leaders differ on solution

THE number of coronavirus cases worldwide topped 6 million yesterday, 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 only behind the United States — disagreement among leaders over lockdown measures has hampered efforts to slow the virus as the number of fatalities in the country nears 30,000.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who fears the economic fallout from stay-at-home measures will be worse than the virus, has berated governors and mayors for imposing what he calls “the tyranny of total quarantine.”

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.

In Britain, which is set to begin lifting its lockdown today, senior advisers to the government warned that it was moving too quickly.

“COVID-19 is spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England,” tweeted Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

India said on Saturday it would begin relaxing the world’s biggest lockdown in stages, even as it marked another record daily rise of more than 8,000 new cases yesterday.

Iran meanwhile announced that collective prayers would resume in mosques, despite infections ticking back upwards 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.

Across the Atlantic, the US capital Washington resumed outdoor dining. New York City, the worst-hit American city with about 21,500 coronavirus deaths, is on track to begin reopening the week of June 8. The overall US death toll has topped 103,000 out of more than 1.7 million cases of the virus.

The economic damage from weeks of lockdowns continues to pile up, with India, Canada, Brazil, France and Italy registering shrinking GDP figures in the first quarter ahead of an expected worldwide recession.

“Without food donations, I’ll have to fight harder for my family to survive,” said motorcycle taxi driver Thanapat Noidee in the tiny hut he shares with his wife and children in Bangkok.

(AFP)