Fears of a second wave of COVID-19 infections
grew on Friday with a record daily increase in India, warnings against
complacency in Europe and word from half a dozen U.S. states that their
hospital beds were filling up fast.
Health officials worldwide have expressed
concerns in recent days that some countries grappling with the devastating
economic impact of lockdowns may lift restrictions too swiftly, and that the
coronavirus could spread during mass anti-racism protests.
Wall Street took its biggest dive in three
months on Thursday on worries of a resurgence and on Friday, shares around the
world extended a four-day losing streak.
In China, where the new coronavirus
originated, two new cases of COVID-19, the disease it causes, were recorded in
the capital, a day after the city government delayed plans for some students to
return to school.
India opened most public transport, offices
and malls this week after nearly 70 days even though health officials said it
was weeks away from flattening the rising infection curve.
The health ministry said registered cases
rose by 10,956 on Friday, a record, with many of them new in the cities of
Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. The official death toll, at 8,498, is relatively
small, however.
Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the head of Delhi's Jama
Masjid, one of India's biggest mosques, ordered a halt to congregations until
the end of the month.
"What is the point of visiting mosques
at a time when the virus is spreading so fast?" he said.
EUROPE
While new infections are slowing in most of
Europe, health experts see a moderate to high risk that post-lockdown rises may
warrant new restrictions.
"The initial wave of transmission has
passed its peak in all countries apart from Poland and Sweden," the
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said, predicting a
moderate acceleration across Europe in coming weeks.
"Such an increase, if not checked
rapidly, may place healthcare systems under stress, as was seen in March and
April in several EU/EEA countries and the UK."
It did, however, note that governments now
had control measures capable of checking and reversing upward trends within two
to three weeks.
"This is not behind us yet. We need to
be vigilant," EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told EU health
ministers, urging them to plough ahead with testing the population and tracing
contacts as they gradually reopen business and borders.
In Belgium, the number of cases was about 1%
higher than the previous week, but authorities said there was no reason to
worry yet.
Andrea Ammon, director of the ECDC, stressed
the importance of maintaining physical distancing, hand hygiene and what she
called "respiratory etiquette".
Officials have expressed concern that the
virus could spread among the tens of thousands who have crowded together in
Europe's big cities to demonstrate against racism after the killing in the
United States of George Floyd while in police custody.
"Mass events could be a major route of
transmission," said Martin Seychell, a health official at the EU
Commission.
SOLIDARITY CALL
World Health Organization Director General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a ceremony in Geneva late on Thursday that
"the threat of a resurgence remains very real":
"We must also remember that, although
the situation is improving here in Europe, globally it's getting worse ... We
will continue to need global solidarity to defeat this pandemic fully."
In about half a dozen U.S. states including
Texas and Arizona, the number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds is
rising, fanning concerns there, too, that the reopening of the economy may
unleash a second wave of infections. Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Oregon, and Nebraska all had a record number of new cases on
Thursday.
"I want the reopening to be
successful," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top executive for the
county that encompasses Houston, Texas, told reporters. "But I'm growing
increasingly concerned that we may be approaching the precipice of a
disaster."
More hospitalisations inevitably mean more
deaths ahead, said Spencer Fox, research associate at the University of Texas
at Austin.
"We are starting to see very worrying
signs about the course the pandemic is taking in cities and states in the U.S.
and around the world," he said. "When you start seeing those signs,
you need to act fairly quickly."
The United States has now recorded more than
113,000 coronavirus deaths, by far the most in the world. That figure could be
over 200,000 by September, Ashish Jha, the head of Harvard's Global Health
Institute, told CNN.
Jha said the United States was the only major
country to reopen without getting its case growth to a controlled level -
defined as the rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus remaining at
5% or lower for at least 14 days.
A Reuters analysis shows that nationally,
that figure has been between 4% and 7% in recent weeks.
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