Virus spread 'still accelerating' in Brazil, Peru, Chile: WHO
WASHINGTON, United States — International health authorities expressed concern Tuesday over signs the spread of the new coronavirus is still accelerating in Brazil, Peru and Chile.
"In South America, we are particularly concerned that the number of new cases reported last week in Brazil was the highest for a seven-day period, since the outbreak began," said Carissa Etienne, director of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
"Both Peru and Chile are also reporting a high incidence, a sign that transmission is still accelerating in these countries," she said at a weekly briefing.
The Pan American Health Organization, which serves as the regional office for the World Health Organization, has been monitoring the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean.
With about 730,000 cases -- out of 5 million globally -- and more than 39,500 deaths from COVID-19 reported as of May 25, Latin America has outpaced Europe and the United States in the number of daily infections.
The region is now "no doubt" the epicenter of the pandemic, Etienne said during the PAHO weekly briefing.
She called for countries to keep up their fight to curb the spread of infections, which experts estimate far exceed the official count.
"For most countries in the Americas, now is not the time to relax restrictions or scale back preventive strategies," she said.
The PAHO recommended a combination of social distancing measures, testing and health system preparations to combat the coronavirus, which was declared a pandemic on March 11 after it appeared in China late last year.
Etienne pointed to parts of the world that have seen their outbreaks slow as examples for how American countries could move forward.
"We have learned from other regions what works and what doesn’t, and we must continue to apply this knowledge to our context," she said.
And she warned that the prevelence of pre-existing conditions -- such as diabetes -- in the Western Hemisphere could make coronavirus even more deadly in the region.
Etienne said Brazil's daily COVID-19 death toll is expected to peak at around 1,020 a day by June 22, citing the IHME model from the University of Washington in the United States.
The model predicted two weeks ago that Brazil would see 88,305 coronavirus deaths by August 4, with a range between 30,302 deaths and 193,786 deaths possible.
With nearly 375,000 cases, Brazil now has the world's biggest coronavirus caseload after the United States. It has had 23,473 deaths, according to a count by AFP.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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