Virus hammers Latin America as EU unveils $825 billion aid plan

THE EU unveiled a 750-billion-euro ($825 billion) recovery plan on Wednesday to get the continent back on its feet after the devastation wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic, as Latin America outpaced Europe and the US in the number of daily infections.

The massive European plan follows other unprecedented emergency measures introduced around the world to rescue economies shattered by the disease, which has claimed more than 350,000 lives as infections top 5.6 million.

While the virus continues to unleash havoc in Latin America, Europe has slowly started reopening businesses as outbreaks on the continent slow. While many Western nations are creeping toward some form of normality, the virus has continued its march in Latin America.

“We are particularly concerned that the number of new cases reported last week in Brazil was the highest for a seven-day period, since the outbreak began,” said Carissa Etienne, director of the Washington-based Pan American

Health Organization.

“Both Peru and Chile are also reporting a high incidence, a sign that transmission is still accelerating in

these countries.”

Brazil reported the highest daily death toll in the world for the fifth straight day, pushing its total to 24,512 with infections

soaring to more than 390,000. The United States remains the hardest-hit nation in the world and with a death toll approaching 100,000.

Brazil reported the highest daily death toll in the world for the fifth straight day, pushing its total to 24,512 with infection cases soaring to more than 390,000

(AFP) Health workers move a COVID-19 infected patient to a C-130 Hercules, to be taken to the city of Concepcion, at a Chilean Air Force base in Santiago, Chile. Patients infected with COVID-19 are taken to other cities in the country in order to free up space in the intensive care units of hospitals.