COVID-19: the WHO calls for a “wake-up” in the face of the epidemic that rages in the Americas
A man is tested for the COVID-19 in a hospital in Hyderabad, India, on 3 July.
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July 3, 2020 15h41
Updated at 22h18
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COVID-19: the WHO calls for a “wake-up” in the face of the epidemic that rages in the Americas
AFP
Agence France-Presse
GENEVA — The world health Organization has urged on Friday to come out of denial and actually “engage the fight” against the outbreak of coronavirus, which is still soaring, notably in the Americas.
The organization had already been pointed out Wednesday that the past seven days had been the worst in terms of contamination (more than 160 000 cases daily) since the epidemic of COVID-19 is a part of China in late 2019, and that 60% of all the cases reported so far had been in the past month.
The person in charge of health emergencies, the WHO, Michael Ryan, has resonné the alarm on Friday. “It really is time that the country look at the numbers. Please, do not ignore this as you say the numbers”, he launched at a press conference.
“People need to wake up. The numbers don’t lie and the situation on the ground does not lie”, he continued. “It is never too late, in an outbreak, take control”.
“WHO understands perfectly well that there are good reasons for countries that want to put their economies on the rails ( … ), But you can’t ignore the problem either, it’s not going to disappear as if by magic”, he said, urging them to adopt containment measures “if there is no alternative”, so that the virus is more active than ever across the Atlantic.
Surge in the Americas
For the first time since the beginning of the epidemic, Latin America has overtaken Friday the Europe in many cases, with more than 2.7 million of patients, even if the Old continent remains the region of the world the most bereaved with nearly 200,000 dead, ahead of the United States and Canada (137 421) and Latin America (121 662).
Experts stress, however, that the number of people affected by the virus is far from being an exact science, the countries with methods and ways of counting very different from each other.
First world power and the country most grief-stricken in the world (128 740 deaths), the United States, whose president Donald Trump wants to cut the bridges with the WHO in the midst of a pandemic, reached Friday 57 683 new infections due to coronavirus in 24 hours, a new record since the beginning of the pandemic. The country has now detected nearly 2.8 million cases in all.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the Institute of infectious diseases, has predicted that the daily number of infections could soon reach the 100,000, and admitted that the disease was in his country out of control.
“It really is time that the country look at the numbers. Please, do not ignore this as you say the numbers ”
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Michael Ryan, head of the emergency health at the WHO
Texas (south), an explosion of new cases has forced the republican governor Greg Abbott, an ally of Donald Trump, to make masks mandatory in public.
Make the mask-wearing compulsory is not a trivial matter in the United States, where to this attribute, as its lack, became signs of political.
The most fervent supporters of Donald Trump instead of rarely. Other invoke their freedom of the individual. A security guard has been shot and killed for having asked a customer to cover her face before entering a store.
Make the mask-wearing compulsory is not a trivial matter in the United States.
AFP, Timothy A. Clary
The United States is tackling a weekend sensitive, with Saturday, the national holiday of July 4, traditionally marked by family reunions and large gatherings to witness the fireworks.
Brazil has recorded Thursday, more than 48 000 new infections and 1 252 additional deaths, bringing the balance of the epidemic 61 884 dead for nearly 1.5 million cases.
Despite this, restaurants, cafes and bars of Rio de Janeiro reopened Thursday after three months of inactivity, an initiative deemed premature by the experts.
Slowdown in Europe
In Europe, the slowing of the pandemic is confirmed, with numbers generally decreasing everywhere.
The european Commission has authorised the placing on the market conditional” of the antiviral remdesivir in the EU, which has given some results in the treatment of critically ill patients for the new coronavirus.
The “market conditional” of the antiviral remdesivir has been authorized.
AFP, Ulrich Perrey
In France, the fifth country the most affected in the world (at least 29 893 deaths), the justice has opened an investigation into the management of the crisis by the ex-Prime minister Edouard Philippe and his former ministers of Health, Olivier Véran and Agnès Buzyn.
The United Kingdom has been the european country most affected (and the third in the world) with at least 44 131 deaths, but the number of cases is slowing down, prompting London to start up a confinement which lasted three months.
Travelers from Germany, France, Spain or Italy will not be, from the 10th of July, subject to quarantine in England, that remains mandatory for any person arriving in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, under penalty of a fine.
Beijing déconfine
In China the municipality of Beijing, which has experienced mid-June, a rebound in the number of cases of COVID-19, announced on Friday the lifting of most restrictions to leave the city on Saturday, at midnight (15: 00 GMT), ensuring to have stopped the contagion.
After two months without any contamination to the coronavirus, the city of 21 million people has suddenly seen the number of cases multiply the last month. At least 331 people have been infected.
In China the municipality of Beijing announced on Friday the lifting of most restrictions to leave the city.
AFP, Wang Zhao
While this reappearance of the virus in Beijing was attributed to a large wholesale market of agricultural capital, China has committed to phase out the slaughter and sale of live poultry food markets.
A market that sold live animals in the city of Wuhan, in the centre of the country, is believed to be the birthplace of the pandemic, which has killed at least 522 246 dead in the world for more than 10.9 million cases, according to a report drawn up by theAFP.
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COVID-19: WHO WAS FIRST INFORMED BY HER OFFICE IN CHINA at the END of DECEMBER
The world health Organization reported this week to have been alerted in late December by its own office in China, not by China itself, on the first cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, the origin of the pandemic COVID-19.
On 9 April, the WHO released the first in a chronology of their communication to respond to critics, notably in the us, accusing it of being late to sound the alarm and complacent with respect to China.
In this timeline, WHO had until now limited itself to stating that the sanitary Commission municipal city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China were reported on December 31 of the cases of pneumonia. The health agency did not, however, who had warned her.
On 20 April, the director-general of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is accused by the Americans of having omitted key information on a possible transmission of coronavirus between human from Taiwan as of the end of December 2019, had also assured in press conference that the first report was “come to China”, without specifying whether it was transmitted by the chinese authorities or by another source.
The virus, which appeared in the city of Wuhan, is believed to be the birthplace of the pandemic, which has killed at least 522 246 deaths in the world.
Archives AFP
The new timeline, published this week by the institution based in Geneva, provides a more detailed version of the facts.
It indicates that it is of the WHO office in China, which, on December 31, shall notify its referent the regional case of “viral pneumonia” after you have found a statement to the media on the website of the health Commission of the municipality of Wuhan to this topic.
On the same day, the intelligence service, on the epidemics of the WHO harvest the other information of media transmitted through the network of epidemiological monitoring international ProMed – based in the United States – on the same group of cases of “pneumonia of unknown cause” in Wuhan.
As a result of which, the WHO has requested on two occasions, 1 and 2 January, the information on these cases to chinese authorities. What they have done on the 3rd of January.
“The countries have a period of 24 to 48 hours, to verify formally an event and provide us with additional information on the nature or cause of the event”, explained Friday the director issues a health emergency the WHO, Michael Ryan, in a press conference.
“The chinese authorities are immediately contacted with our responsible national as soon as we have requested an audit of the report”, he said.
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