The World Health Organization 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. “The pandemic is still accelerating,” WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the virtual health forum organised by Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. “We know that the pandemic is much more than a health crisis, it is an economic crisis, a social crisis and in many countries a political crisis. “Its effects will be felt for decades to come.”
Ghebreyesus said the greatest threat facing the world is not the virus itself, which has now killed over 465,000 people and infected nearly nine million worldwide, but “the lack of global solidarity and global leadership”.
“We cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world,” he said. “The politicisation of the pandemic has exacerbated it.” 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. Fears remain, however, that the virus, may be on its way back even as countries where infections have ebbed lift their lockdowns to restart battered economies. Australians were warned Monday to avoid travelling to Melbourne, as the country’s second biggest city tightened restrictions over fears of a second wave. Victoria state has recorded more than 110 cases in the past week — many of them in Melbourne — prompting leaders of other regions to warn against visiting the city’s six designated virus “hot spots”. China, Germany and Japan are also battling new outbreaks with some reintroducing containment measures. Kyrgyzstan also 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 spike in infections increased nervousness in the business world as markets mostly fell on Monday. After enjoying a broadly positive week, with equities rallying from their March trough, traders turned cautious on news of a worrying jump in fresh cases in several US states including California, Texas and Florida.