The United States reported a dailyrecord of Covid-19 deaths and Brazil’s toll passed the bleak milestone of200,000 Thursday as new surges of the coronavirus dimmed hopes for respitefrom the pandemic anytime soon, reports AFP.
Sharp rises in cases around the world have led authorities to impose a slewof new lockdowns and other restrictions, even as dozens of countries roll outthe first stages of the vaccination campaigns hailed as the light at the endof the tunnel.
China has imposed emergency measures to tackle an outbreak in the northerncity of Shijiazhuang, while Tokyo began a month-long state of emergency Friday, calling on businesses in the Japanese capital to stop serving alcoholby 7:00 pm and residents to stay home after 8:00 pm.
Canada and Lebanon have ordered nighttime curfews, while the World HealthOrganization warned that European nations need to ramp up efforts to deal with a new, more contagious strain of the virus that first emerged inEngland.
The plight of countries struggling to control the virus matters beyondtheir borders, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
“The fact is that no one is safe until we are all safe,” it said.
“The nature of this virus means that the world can only be as strong as theweakest health system.”
The global outbreak shows no signs of abating, with nearly 1.9 millionpeople known to have died worldwide and 87 million confirmed cases.
The numbers continued to pile up at an alarming rate in the United States,the country with the world’s highest death toll, at more than 360,000.
The US registered a record 3,998 deaths over the past 24 hours, accordingto Johns Hopkins University.
Brazil, the country with the second-highest toll, meanwhile reported itssecond-highest number of daily deaths — 1,524 — on its way to passing themark of 200,000 people killed by the virus.
The situation stands to get a lot worse in Brazil before it gets better,warned Paulo Lotufo, an epidemiologist at the University of Sao Paulo.
“I don’t even know how we’re going to get through January,” he told AFP.
“A lot of health workers are exhausted. People have had to deal with a hugeamount of suffering.”
Brazil is now seeing uncomfortable reminders of the pandemic’s worst days.
In the Amazon rainforest city of Manaus, the health system is again beingpushed to the brink, echoing haunting scenes last April of mass graves andcorpses piled in refrigerator trucks.
As the authorities deployed refrigerator trucks a second time, a court onSaturday ordered the state government to shut non-essential businesses for 15days.
California has also deployed 166 refrigerated trailers to be used astemporary morgues by overwhelmed hospitals, officials said.
The pandemic crushed economic growth last year, and France’s financeminister warned that the worst was still to come.
“There will be more bankruptcies in 2021 than in 2020,” said Bruno LeMaire.
The minister in charge of Japan’s pandemic response meanwhile warned thatTokyo’s medical system was “stretched thin,” a major worry for a city gearing up to host the Olympic Games in the summer.
The Australian city of Brisbane called a snap three-day lockdown after aworker at a quarantine hotel contracted the highly infectious British strainof Covid-19.
In China, authorities have moved swiftly to contain a new cluster of casesin Shijiazhuang, in northern Hebei province, closing schools, cutting travellinks and implementing mass testing.
England meanwhile announced it would introduce mandatory coronavirustesting for all international arrivals starting early next week.
France said it had confirmed 10 cases of the mutant British coronavirusstrain — a worrying development which means the more infectious strain couldalready be circulating more widely in the country.
Restrictions at the British border — blocking most people from enteringFrance, including tourists — will nonetheless be kept in force “untilfurther notice” in a bid to stop the new strain taking hold, said PrimeMinister Jean Castex.
Britain began its third lockdown on Wednesday despite being praised for arelatively rapid vaccine rollout.
“Unless we take the lockdown seriously the impact on healthcare for thewhole country could be catastrophic,” said Rupert Pearse, a professor ofintensive care medicine who works at the Royal London Hospital.
The surge in British cases has not left elite sport untouched, with AstonVilla becoming the fourth Premier League football club to confirm anoutbreak.
Those infections add to growing worries about whether English football’stop-flight can complete the season on schedule, with 40 players across theleague testing positive last week and three matches already postponed.
