The World Health Organisation warned the worst of the coronavirus pandemic was still to come because of a lack of global solidarity.
The coronavirus pandemic is “not even close to being over”, the World Health Organisation warned, as the global death toll passed half a million and cases surged in Latin America and the United States.
“We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Monday.
“But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over,” he said, adding that “although many countries have made some progress, globally the pandemic is actually speeding up”.
Covid-19 is still rampaging across the US, which has recorded more than 125,000 deaths and 2.5 million cases – both around a quarter of the global totals.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the April-June quarter was expected to see the largest decline in GDP on record, adding that recovery would depend on government efforts to contain the outbreak.
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‘We cannot beat this virus with ideologies’ – World Health Organisation
California and Texas both marked record spikes in new Covid-19 infections on Monday, as Los Angeles reported an “alarming” one-day surge in America’s second-largest city that put it over 100,000 cases. Los Angeles has become a new epicentre in the pandemic as coronavirus cases and hospitalisation surge there despite California Governor Gavin Newsom’s strict orders requiring bars to close and residents to wear masks in nearly all public spaces.
