COVID-19: GLOBAL IMPACT
WHO: Disease on the way up
A top health expert has warned the world is still in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, dampening hopes for a speedy global economic rebound and renewed international travel. “Right now, we’re not in the second wave. We’re right in the middle of the first wave globally,” said Dr Mike Ryan, the World Health Organisation’s executive director. “We’re still very much in a phase where the disease is actually on the way up,” Ryan said, pointing to South America, South Asia and other parts of the world. India, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, saw a record single-day jump in new cases for the seventh straight day. It reported 6535 new infections yesterday, raising its total to more than 145,000, including 4200 deaths. The virus has taken hold in some of the country’s poorest, most densely populated areas, underscoring the challenges authorities face in trying to contain a virus for which no vaccine has yet been developed. Worldwide, the virus has infected 5.5 million people, killing about 350,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the tally understates the true toll of the disaster.
Former doctor rallies anti vaxxers
Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British former doctor, is using the coronavirus pandemic to promote his claims that vaccines are unsafe, as he calls for widespread protests against their use in the United States. Since being struck off the British medical register over a discredited study that suggested a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism, Wakefield has become a prominent figure within America’s anti-vaccine movement. Now, with the outbreak of Covid-19 in the US, he has been appearing
alongside other prominent vaccine sceptics who promote unfounded theories that call into doubt the severity of the virus and suggest its dangers have been exaggerated in order to force the public to receive mandatory vaccinations. In one recent appearance, Wakefield called on his followers to protest “in numbers that are sufficient to terrify the politicians into doing the right thing”. He went on to warn of a scenario in which vaccines will cause “one in two children” to have autism by 2032. “Vaccines are going to kill us,” he said. “People need to wake up to that”. There is no evidence that vaccines are unsafe, and most health officials agree that safe and effective treatment is the only longterm route out of the current pandemic.
Virus misinformation warning
Senator Marco Rubio, the new
Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is warning that foreign actors will seek to amplify conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and find new ways to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The Florida Republican said that one possibility could be an effort to convince people that a new vaccine against the virus, once created, would be more harmful than helpful. Four years after Russian efforts to sow division in the US, he warned: “I’m not sure that we’re any less vulnerable than we once were.” Rubio is taking over the chairmanship just as the committee wraps up a three-year investigation into the Russian interference. The panel has publicly released its endorsement of a 2017 assessment by intelligence agencies that Russia interfered and favoured Trump, a conclusion Trump has disputed.