Courtesy: Common Dreams, CBS News

After 500,000 Deaths, WHO Warns Worst of Pandemic Is “Yet to Come”

June 30, 2020: Six months since the new coronavirus outbreak, the pandemic is still far from over, the World Health Organization said Monday, warning that “the worst is yet to come.” Reaching the half-year milestone just as the death toll surpassed 500,000 and the number of confirmed infections topped 10 million, the WHO said it was a moment to recommit to the fight to save lives.

“Six months ago, none of us could have imagined how our world — and our lives — would be thrown into turmoil by this new virus,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing.

“We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over,” he said. “Although many countries have made some progress, globally the pandemic is actually speeding up.”

Tedros added that ” we’re all in this for the long haul.”

“We will need even greater stores of resilience, patience, humility and generosity in the months ahead,” he said. “We have already lost so much — but we cannot lose hope.”

Tedros also said that the pandemic had brought out the best and worst humanity, citing acts of kindness and solidarity, but also misinformation and the politicization of the virus.

In an atmosphere of global political division and fractures on a national level, “the worst is yet to come. I’m sorry to say that,” he said.

“With this kind of environment and condition, we fear the worst.”

(Courtesy: CBS News)

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As Pandemic Soars in US and Brazil, Red Cross Federation Chief Slams Trump and Bolsonaro for Anti-Science Responses

Andrea Germanos

July 2, 2020: The head of the Red Cross federation on Wednesday expressed grave concern about the continuing spread of the coronavirus in the Americas and criticized Brazil and U.S. government leaders for their disastrous science-rejecting responses to the pandemic thus far.

Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), made the remarks at a virtual press conference in Geneva where he warned that “we haven’t yet reached the peak of this outbreak.”

Rocca said the effects of partisan rhetoric and policies out-of-line with science on the pandemic were clear.

“America as a continent is paying the highest price for this kind of division or not following the advice coming from the scientific community,” he said. President Donald Trump in the U.S. and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have faced sustained criticism over their handling of the coronavirus. Bolsonaro, who notably dismissed it as a “little flu,” has, like Trump, refused to wear a face mask in public gatherings.

The two countries lead the world in coronavirus cases. As of press time, the Johns Hopkins tracker showed the U.S. with the highest number of confirmed cases—over 2.6 million. Brazil is a distant second with over 1.4 million confirmed cases. The countries also have the highest number of Covid-19 related deaths; the U.S. has had over 128,000 such deaths and Brazil over 60,000.

According to Rocca, Bolsonaro “underestimated the consequences of Covid, and his country is living the consequences.”

“If the scientific community is saying that it is important to avoid to shake hands, and to wear masks, I think that the leaders should follow and listen,” Rocca said when asked about Trump’s mask refusal.

Rocca added that other world leaders too “have been irresponsible” in their response to the coronavirus pandemic and said politicians must “start learning to follow the advice coming from the scientific community.”

Rocca’s remarks came the same day Trump said the virus would “disappear.”

“I think we’re gonna be very good with the coronavirus,” Trump told Fox Business. “I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.”

The U.S. is on a string of record-setting single-day totals for the coronavirus, hitting a fourth record on Tuesday with over 48,000 new cases and over 50,000 cases on Wednesday.

According to the nation’s top infectious disease expert, the daily figure could go even higher.

Speaking before a Senate committee hearing Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he “would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.”

(Courtesy: Common Dreams, a US non-profit news portal.)

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Top CDC Official Gives Grim Assessment on Coronavirus Containment

Andrea Germanos

June 30, 2020: The number two official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a grim assessment Monday about the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S., warning the country is “not even beginning to be over this” and “clearly not at a point where there’s so little virus being spread that it’s going to be easy to snuff out.”

The comments from CDC principal deputy director Dr. Anne Schuchat came in a live-streamed Q&A session with The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Schuchat contrasted the situation in the U.S. with that of New Zealand or Singapore, “where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control.”

“We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging,” she said.

The new surge of Covid-19 cases in the U.S., warned Schuchat, is “really the beginning.”

“I think there was a lot of wishful thinking around the country that, ‘Hey it’s summer. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re over this,’ and we are not even beginning to be over this,” said Schuchat, adding, “There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so.”

PBS Newshour‘s William Brangham tweeted Schuchat’s comments served as a “brutal pandemic reality check.”

Public health experts weighed in on the interview as well.

Schuchat’s interview took place the same day World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a similarly sobering assessment of progress to contain the coronavirus, saying that “this is not even close to being over.”

“Although many countries have made some progress,” he said, “globally the pandemic is actually speeding up.”

(Courtesy: Common Dreams, a US non-profit news portal.)

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HHS Secretary Warns ‘Window is Closing’ to Get Disease Back Under Control in US

Eoin Higgins

June 28, 2020: Confirmed global cases of the coronavirus hit 10 million Sunday, a grim milestone that came as reported deaths from the disease climbed toward 500,000 and a top U.S. health official warned the country’s chances of getting the outbreak back under control were fast disappearing.

“This is a very, very serious situation and the window is closing for us to take action and get this under control,” Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday.

Data from Johns Hopkins University, which has tracked the disease for months, showed the total confirmed cases around the world at over 10 million by early Sunday afternoon. Total deaths as of press time had nearly exceeded the 500,000 mark.

The U.S. leads the world in total cases with over 2.5 million and in deaths with 125,709. Brazil is a distant second in both categories with around 1.3 million cases and just over 57,000 deaths.

“We are 4% of the world’s population and we are 25% of the cases and the deaths,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on an appearance on ABC Sunday.

President Donald Trump’s management of the disease has been blamed by critics for the nation’s high rate of infection and death count. Trump and members of his administration have blamed a host of other factors, including testing, on the high rate.

Former Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Tom Frieden told Fox News Sunday that rationale was simply untrue.

“As a doctor, a scientist, an epidemiologist, I can tell you with 100% certainty that in most states where you’re seeing an increase, it is a real increase,” said Frieden. “It is not more tests, it is more spread of the virus.”

(Courtesy: Common Dreams, a US non-profit news portal.)