The global coronavirus crisis will not end any time soon, with many countries still in the early stages of the fight, health experts have warned as researchers revealed the first US deaths from the disease came weeks before the alarm was raised there.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people and infected more than 2.6 million, and nations are struggling to check its spread with social distancing measures and lockdowns while trying to repair their virus-ravaged economies.
Some have started to slowly ease restrictions as pressure mounts on governments to find ways to reopen their societies after tens of millions of jobs were wiped out.
But World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday cautioned that the struggle is far from over.
Resurgence in cases
“Make no mistake: We have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time,” he said.
“Most countries are still in the early stages of their epidemics. And some that were affected early in the pandemic are now starting to see a resurgence in cases.”
The comments came after the director of the US Centers for Disease Control asked Americans to prepare for a second, possibly more devastating, wave of coronavirus infections.
The United States is the hardest-hit country on the planet, with more than 46,500 coronavirus deaths and nearly 840,000 infections.
Vaccine trials
The WHO and other health experts have warned that strict containment measures like lockdowns should remain until there is a viable treatment or vaccine for the coronavirus.
There was a ray of hope on that front in Europe, where Germany announced Wednesday that human trials for a vaccine will start by next week.
It is only the fifth such effort to have been authorized worldwide and is a significant step in making a vaccine “available as soon as possible,” Germany’s regulatory body said.
But even at the current, rapid pace of development, an effective prophylactic could be several months away.
In Europe–where the death toll climbed past 110,000–some countries have slightly eased coronavirus measures, but bans on large gatherings have been extended.
Unacceptable
Taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to erode human rights would be unacceptable, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday, unveiling a new report on the issue.
As governments around the world implemented extraordinary measures to deal with the outbreak, activists have increasingly warned of strongmen regimes using the crisis to roll back rights.
Rights groups have called states out for everything from violence, threats to press freedom, arrests and smartphone surveillance implemented to fight the wave of infections.
“Against the background of rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a pushback against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic,” Guterres said in a statement.
“This is unacceptable.”
Fewer passengers
The coronavirus pandemic could mean 1.2 billion fewer airline passengers worldwide by September, the International Civil Aviation Organization said.
The “most substantial reduction in passenger numbers,” the UN agency said in a statement, “is expected to be in Europe, especially during its peak summer travel season, followed by the Asia-Pacific.”
Airline capacity could also be significantly slashed, it said, resulting in a drop in airline revenues in the first nine months of the year by as much as $160-253 billion.
The projections are more dire than the ICAO’s initial estimates in February when the outbreak seemed to be mostly localized in China, where almost all of the first 1,400 COVID-19 deaths were recorded.
The ICAO said then that the airline industry was facing a $4-5 billion drop in revenue.
Social distancing eased
Communist Vietnam eased social distancing measures Thursday, with experts pointing to a decisive response involving mass quarantines and expansive contact tracing for the apparent success in containing the coronavirus.
Despite a long and porous border with China, the Southeast Asian nation has recorded just 268 virus cases and zero deaths, according to official tallies.
Although the numbers tested for COVID-19 are relatively low and experts caution the authoritarian government’s health ministry is the sole source for the figures, they also say there is little reason to distrust them.
Vietnam was one of the first nations to ban flights to and from mainland China and in early February, when it had barely more than a dozen cases, villages with 10,000 people close to the nation’s capital were placed under quarantine.
