06/19/2020 - 14:57
- Clarín.com
- World
The world entered a "dangerous phase" of the coronavirus pandemic with lack of control, the World Health Organization alerted this Friday to a virus that continues to circulate at high speed in Latin America.
"The world entered a new and dangerous phase. Many people are obviously tired of staying home. Countries are eager to reopen their society and economy," said WHO chief Tedros Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Italian health authorities on Friday called for "prudence" after finding "warning signs of transmission" of the virus, particularly in Rome.
The coronavirus advances inexorably and the death toll increased two-fold in a month and a half . Since it was detected in China in December, it has infected more than 8.5 million people.
In the last 24 hours, Brazil, with more than 1,200 deaths, and Mexico, with 770, are the countries in the world that registered the most deaths, according to an AFP count.
Mexico also recorded 5,662 new cases of contagion, a record daily number in that country. The government began the gradual reopening of economic activities on June 1.
A municipal agent disinfects this Thursday the facade of a health center in São Paulo, Brazil, the second country most affected by the coronavirus after the United States. / EFE
Hugo López Gatell, Mexican undersecretary of Health and in charge of the strategy against covid-19, recognized, however, that "the epidemic is not yet over" and that initial estimates of deaths have been exceeded.
The virus does not give Brazil a truce either. With 210 million inhabitants, it registers 47,748 deaths and this Friday exceeded one million positive cases. The second hardest hit after the United States.
A hospital for coronavirus sufferers, set up in a Military Camp in Mexico City. The country began the reopening, although coronavirus cases are on the rise. / REUTERS
Chile, which is close to 4,000 dead, tightened sanctions for those who do not respect quarantine , with penalties of up to five years in prison.
If the pandemic continues to advance in America, in China, which had recovered some normality and where the virus seemed to be under control, a flare-up of the disease has been feared since last week .
Municipal employees disinfect a plaza in Puno, Peru, this Friday. The pandemic is spreading in Latin America. / AFP
On Friday, authorities reported 25 new cases in Beijing, leading to 183 infections in that capital of 21 million people.
This rebound forced the communist regime to impose confinement in several neighborhoods and carry out diagnostic tests on thousands of inhabitants.
But the United States questions the "credibility" of these figures and asks to send "neutral" observers.
A line in Beijjng, the capital of China, this Friday, to be tested for Covid-19, before a re-emergence of the virus. / AFP
China revealed on Friday the coronavirus genome detected these days and hinted that this virus would be a version of the one that circulated around the European continent several weeks or months ago.
"It is possible that the virus currently causing an epidemic in Beijing has traveled from Wuhan to Europe and has now returned to China, " estimates Ben Cowling, a professor at the Center for Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.
Other scientific data, this time from Italy, revealed on Friday that the new coronavirus was already in the wastewater of Milan and Turin (north) last December, two months before the first covid-19 patient was officially registered.
The United States, the country most affected by the pandemic with nearly 120,000 deaths, registered 687 deaths in the last 24 hours, the eighth consecutive day with a daily balance of less than 1,000 deaths.
United States President Donald Trump. He is leading a campaign event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the states with an increase in coronavirus cases. / AFP
White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said in an interview with AFP that it is not necessary to order more general closings in the United States, but that management should have a local focus.
But despite encouraging data, the country is seeing an increase in cases in some twenty states and the focus shifted from New York and the northeast to the south and west.
This is the case in Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump plans a campaign event with tens of thousands of people this weekend, and Florida, where some localities ordered the use of a mask. In this context, the reopening of borders is not currently being considered , neither with Europe, nor with Mexico or Canada.
Europe debates the reconstruction plan
In Europe, the continent hardest hit by the pandemic with more than 190,000 deaths, the 27 leaders of the European Union (EU) agreed on Friday to meet again in July to try to overcome their differences over a billionaire plan against the deep recession caused by the pandemic, among calls to act quickly.
The main theme of the negotiations is a recovery plan of 750,000 million euros (about 844,000 million dollars), half a trillion of which would be distributed through subsidies to the countries most affected by the pandemic, such as Spain and Italy.
An eventual failure hangs like Damocles' sword over the EU. The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, warned that the situation in the labor market will worsen, depending on her environment.
Source: AFP
