Coronavirus cases around world doubled to 20 million in 6 weeks
More than half of all cases come from three countries.
Associated Press
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 21:32:31 GMT
link -- with images
BRASILIA, Brazil — It took six months for the world to reach 10 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus. It took just over six weeks for that number to double.
The worldwide count of known infections climbed past 20 million on Monday, with more than half of them from just three countries: the United States, Brazil, and India, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The severe and sustained crisis in the United States — over 5 million cases and 163,000 deaths, easily the highest totals of any country — has dismayed and surprised many around the world, given the nation’s vaunted scientific ingenuity and the head start it had over Europe and Asia to prepare.
South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Russia, and the Philippines round out the list of the top 10 countries contributing the most new cases to the global tally since July 22, according to an Associated Press analysis of Johns Hopkins data through Monday.
The real number of people infected by the virus around the world is believed to be much higher, given testing limitations and the many mild cases that have gone unreported or unrecognized.
Some of the worst-hit nations have been those whose leaders have downplayed the severity of the virus, undercut the advice of health experts and pushed unproven remedies.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, for example, all rarely wear masks and have resisted calls for strict lockdowns.
In Mexico and Brazil testing has been criticized as inadequate. In Mexico 47 percent of tests are coming back positive, suggesting that only seriously ill people are getting screened.
Contact tracing, which has helped authorities in other countries get a handle on the spread, has also been criticized as insufficient in all three countries.
Mexico has reported nearly 500,000 cases and more than 50,300 deaths, but the president’s point man on the epidemic, Assistant Health Secretary Hugo Lopez-Gatell, said a full lockdown would prove too costly for people with little savings and tenuous daily incomes.
“We do not want a solution that would, in social terms, be more costly than the disease itself,” he said.
Cases have begun to rise significantly in Caracas, perhaps one of the world’s least-prepared cities to face the pandemic.
Venezuela has been under a lockdown since March, but limited testing, open defiance of quarantine measures and the return of tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants from countries with higher caseloads have resulted in a steady expansion that is starting to overwhelm hospitals with scarce supplies.
Elsewhere around the world, New Zealand, which has been praised for quickly getting the virus under control, reported the first cases of local transmission in the country in 102 days. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said four cases were discovered in a single Auckland household.
Taiwan’s foreign minister said it has sent coronavirus assistance to foreign countries surreptitiously to avoid protests from China during a meeting with the highest-level American official to visit the island in four decades.
The trip by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar comes against the backdrop of a sharp downturn in relations between China and the United States and Mr. Azar said in his remarks that the U.S. supported Taiwan’s participation in international health forums.
China’s attempts to isolate Taiwan have compelled the island at times to keep its donations of masks and personal protective equipment under the radar, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said.
“Truth is, we even had to deliver these supplies quietly in some occasions to keep the recipients free from trouble, trouble from Beijing,” Mr. Wu said.