Rome: While China moved closer to containing a fresh outbreak in Beijing, the coronavirus took a stronger hold elsewhere, including the United States, where surging infections across southern states have highlighted the risks of reopening economies without effective treatment or vaccines.
Another record daily increase in India on Friday pushed the caseload in the world’s second most populous nation toward half a million, and other countries with big populations like Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico grappled with large numbers of infections and strained health care systems.
South Africa, which accounts for about half of the infections on the African continent with 118,375, reported a record 6,579 new cases, as transmissions increase after it loosened what had been one of the world’s strictest lockdowns earlier this month.
Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, warned that the government has the power to act to prevent overcrowding that could cause new infection spikes. He was responding to scenes of packed beaches and trains heading to coastal resort towns a day earlier and throngs of jubilant fans celebrating Liverpool’s first English soccer league title in 30 years. Hancock told TalkRadio that he was “reluctant” to close public spaces as “people have had a pretty tough lockdown.”
However, he said “we will take action” if there is a spike in the number of coronavirus cases. Italy, one of the hardest hit European nations, battled to control an outbreak among Bulgarian seasonal crop pickers near Naples.
The governor of southern Campania region insisted that the workers who live in an apartment complex with dozens of COVID-19 cases must stay inside for just over two weeks, not even emerging for food — authorities will deliver groceries to them. The complex must be kept in “rigorous isolation,” Gov. Vincenzo De Luca said.
That means that for 15 days, “nobody leaves and nobody enters” the apartments, where some 50 cases have been confirmed among about 700 residents. Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, lashed out at the World Health Organization on Friday, calling it “a total mistake” to put his nation on a list of countries where “accelerated transmission” could overwhelm health systems. “This is unfortunately a total misjudgment of the Swedish data,” Tegnell told Swedish radio.
A report by the WHO’s Europe office on Thursday named 11 countries, including Sweden, Armenia, Albania, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Sweden has seen a steep rise in the number of COVID-19 cases but this has been attributed to an increase in testing.
In China, where the pandemic originated in December, authorities have mobilized resources for mass testing and locked down parts of Beijing this month due to an outbreak that has infected 260 people. The 11 new cases reported in the capital Friday continued a downward trend that suggests transmissions have been largely brought under control.
The United States, which counts the most infections in the world, is seeing daily jumps in COVID-19 cases nearing the peak reached in late April. Deaths tolls have dropped even as the number of infections have increased. (PTI)
