Fighting COVID-19: Lack of global leadership is ‘greatest threat’, says WHO

Ag Agencies

DUBAI: World leaders must not politicise the coronavirus pandemic but unite to fight it, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned Monday, reminding all that the pandemic is still accelerating and producing record daily increases in infections.

The comments by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has faced criticism from US President Donald Trump, came as the number of reported infections soared in Brazil, Iraq, India and southern and western US states, straining local hospitals. It took over three months for the world to see1 million virus infections, but the last 1 million cases have come in just eight days, Tedros said during a videoconference for the Dubai-based World Government Summit, reported foreign media.

Tedros never mentioned Trump’s name or the fact that he is determined to pull the United States out of the UN health agency but warned against “politicising” the pandemic.

“The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself, it’s the lack of global solidarity and global leadership,” he said. “We cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world.”

Trump has criticised the WHO for its early response to the outbreak and what he considers its excessive praise of China, where the outbreak began, as his administration’s response in the US has come under scrutiny. In response, Trump has threatened to end all US funding for the WHO.

Nearly 9 million people have been infected by the virus worldwide and more than 468,000 have died, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the actual numbers are much higher, due to limited testing and asymptomatic cases.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that, indeed, the world was not prepared,” Tedros said. “Globally, the pandemic is still accelerating.”

Companies around the world are racing to find a vaccine to counter COVID-19 and there is a fierce debate about how to make sure that vaccine is distributed fairly.

Speaking later in the conference, WHO’s special envoy on COVID-19, Dr David Nabarro, said he believed it would be “2 1/2 years until there will be vaccine for everybody in the world.” “Even if there’s a candidate by the end of the year, the safety and efficacy tests will take some time,” the British physician said. “And then the effort has to be put into producing large amounts of vaccine so everyone in the world can get it and then organizing the vaccination programmes.”

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said “everything needs to be done” to control an outbreak linked to a large slaughterhouse has infected over 1,300 people. Authorities started mass testing of all workers at the Toennies meat plant in the western Guetersloh region and have put thousands of people into quarantine. Authorities have dispatched virologists, contact tracing teams and the German army to help. “This is an outbreak that needs to be taken very seriously,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

India’s health care system has been slammed by the virus. The country’s caseload climbed by nearly 15,000 Monday to 425,282, with more than 13,000 deaths.

After easing a nationwide lockdown, the Indian government ran special trains to return thousands of migrant workers to their villages in recent weeks. Nearly 90% of India’s poorest districts have cases, although the outbreak remains centered in Delhi, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu states, which are home to major cities.

In Pakistan, infections are accelerating and hospitals are having to turn away patients, with new cases up to 6,800 a day. The government has relaxed pandemic restrictions, hoping to salvage a near-collapsed economy as the number of people living in poverty has risen to 40% of the population of 220 million people.

In Iraq, masked workers were setting up makeshift coronavirus wards in Baghdad’s vast exhibition grounds as a long-dreaded spike in infections strained its overstretched hospitals. More than two-thirds of the new deaths of late have been reported in the Americas. The coronavirus has killed about 120,000 people across the US, over 50,000 in Brazil and nearly 22,000 in Mexico.

US authorities have reported more than 30,000 new infections a day recently but in New York City, once the epicenter of the US outbreak, Monday was a key day for lifting many coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Yet Eve Gonzalez, a food industry worker in New York whose job hasn’t yet resumed, feels it’s too soon to relax restrictions. “I’m dying to go out, but people’s health is more important,” said Gonzalez, 27.

Infections have slowed in China and South Korea, suggesting some progress in stemming their newest outbreaks. South Korea reported 17 new cases, the first time its daily increase fell to under 20 in nearly a month and Beijing’s increase was in single digits for the first time in eight days.

The UN AIDS agency, meanwhile, warned that the pandemic could jeopardise the supply of AIDS drugs in developing countries. UNAIDS said lockdowns and border closures adopted to stop the spread of COVID-19 were affecting both the production and distribution of the medicines, which could result in higher costs and deadly shortages in the next two months. As of last year, UNAIDS estimated more than 24 million people were on life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.

The WHO sent out a fresh warning on Monday over the dangers of the new coronavirus even as France returned to life by staging an annual music festival and sending millions of children back to school.

In spite of numerous European countries further easing their lockdown restrictions, cases around the world are rising especially in Latin America with Brazil now registering over 50,000 deaths. There are also fears of a second wave with Australians being warned against travelling to Melbourne.

Brazil falls into that bracket with President Jair Bolsonaro comparing the virus to a "little flu" and arguing that the economic impact of shutdowns is often worse than the virus itself. Brazil is the second worst-affected country behind the United States, another country where political infighting has prevented a unified policy to handle the virus.

The spread of COVID-19 is accelerating across Latin America, with Mexico, Peru and Chile also hard-hit as death tolls soar and healthcare facilities are pushed toward collapse.

Mexico City has delayed reopening markets, restaurants, malls, hotels and places of worship, with the country now recording over 20,000 COVID-19 deaths. Highlighting the region´s woes, Peru passed 8,000 deaths on Sunday despite preparing to reopen shopping malls on Monday.

After enjoying a broadly positive week, with equities rallying from their march through, traders turned cautious on news of a worrying jump in fresh cases in several US states including California, Texas and Florida.

German airline group Lufthansa, meanwhile, says it has backup plans ready in case shareholders reject a nine-billion-euro pandemic rescue plan agreed with the state. Like rival airlines, Lufthansa was plunged into crisis after efforts to contain the coronavirus brought air travel to a near standstill for several months this year.

The sporting world has been re-emerging from the darkness, although for every step forward it seems to take one back.

Japan announced that up to 5,000 fans will be able to attend football and baseball games from July 10 but the presence of fans at other sporting events, notably in the Balkans, appears to have caused problems.

Five players from Serbian club Red Star Belgrade tested positive for coronavirus after playing a match attended by 16,000 people, the club said Monday.

Montenegro, which had declared itself virus-free, announced a new cluster of cases, predominantly football fans who had travelled to Belgrade to watch the match.

In neighbouring Croatia, Borna Coric became the second top tennis player, after Grigor Dimitrov, to test positive after taking part in an exhibition tournament featuring world number one Novak Djokovic.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh reported 3,480 more COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the total cases in the country to over 115,000. "3,480 new COVID-19 positive cases and 38 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh," senior health ministry official Nasima Sultana said in a briefing on Monday afternoon.

"The total number of positive cases is now 115,786 and death toll stands currently at 1,502 with the fresh fatalities of 33 men and five women," she added.

While, Iran on Monday confirmed 119 additional fatalities from the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide death toll to 9,742. A further 2,573 people tested positive for COVID-19, raising the overall count to 207,525, Health Ministry spokesman Sima Sadat Lari said. He said a total of 166,428 people have recovered and been discharged from hospitals so far, adding that 2,898 remain at hospitals in critical condition.

Over 1.44 million tests have been conducted in the country to date, Lari said.

India's federal health ministry Monday morning said 445 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 14,821 positive cases, were reported during the past 24 hours across the country, taking the number of deaths to 13,699 and total cases to 425,282. "As on 8:00 am (local time) Monday, 13,699 deaths related to novel coronavirus have been recorded in the country," said information released by the ministry.

On Sunday morning the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was 410,461, and the death toll 13,254. According to ministry officials, so far 237,196 people have been discharged from hospitals after showing improvement. "The number of active cases in the country right now is 174,387," reads the information.

Meanwhile, social distancing and face masks were largely forgotten as thousands of French people danced and partied well into Monday in the first big blow out since the coronavirus lockdown.

The annual midsummer Festival of Music usually brings millions of people out onto the streets across the country for impromptu concerts in cafes and on street corners that go on long into the night.

And despite emergency measures which ban gatherings of more than 10 people, thousands thronged the trendy Canal Saint Martin and the Marais districts of Paris late Sunday to dance and sing along to bands and DJs. Not even heavy showers could dampen spirits, with few beyond those serving spicey merguez sausages from street stalls bothering to wear masks.

"The Festival of Music is important, it´s a national event," 28-year-old reveller Violette said as she boogied to a band in northern Paris. And she laughed at the idea that people would be strictly respecting social distancing. "Not at all," she said.

Disgraced politician Patrick Balkany -- whose lawyers persuaded a judge earlier this year that he was too ill to serve a five-year jail sentence for money laundering and tax evasion -- was also spotted dancing in the street without a mask in the chic Paris suburb of which he is still the mayor.

The 71-year-old right-winger, a close friend of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, further fanned the fury on social media by posting a video of himself partying in a pink sweater and white shoes on Instagram.

Cinemas also reopened in France on Monday for the first time since the lockdown began in March.

"Watching series on Netflix is one thing, but the cinema is something else," said the film´s star Emmanuelle Devos. Even though cinemas have reopened, they are far from back to normal.

Kyrgyzstan reported a significant rise in coronavirus cases on Monday, less than a month after the Central Asian nation´s government lifted restrictions in key cities.

The country is one of several ex-Soviet nations that have seen a rise in cases in recent days, including neighbouring Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan´s government reported a daily record of 205 new cases on Monday.

The total number of coronavirus cases has reached 3,356 in Kyrgyzstan, of whom 2,021 patients have recovered, while 40 have died -- up from 16 at the beginning of the month.

First Deputy Prime Minister Almazbek Baatyrbekov said Monday that the premises of a former US military base that has already been used to quarantine arrivals in the country could be used to house coronavirus patients as numbers increase. Baatyrbekov also said the government was selecting a location for a "tent camp, which will be used in case of mass infections," in quotes reported by the Kyrgyz government press service.

Some Kyrgyz on social media have complained of being unable to submit tests despite having coronavirus symptoms.

Kazakhstan had recorded a total of 17,732 coronavirus cases as of Monday, not including 9,809 asymptomatic cases which authorities treat as a separate category.

Russia recorded 7,600 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total to 592,280, the country's coronavirus response center said in a statement Monday. The death toll grew by 95 to 8,206, while 344,416 people have recovered, including 4,705 over the last 24 hours, according to the statement.

Moscow, the country's worst-hit region, reported 1,068 newly confirmed cases, taking its tally of infections to 215,014. As of Sunday, 311,421 people were under medical observation, while more than 17.2 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted nationwide, Russia''s consumer rights and human well-being watchdog said Monday.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Russian gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 10.9 percent year-on-year in May, the Russian Economic Development Ministry said late Friday.