Pandemic spreads in Latin America as cases pass 20,000
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — More than 20,000 cases of COVID-19 were registered in Latin America and the Caribbean by Wednesday — double the figure from five days ago, according to an AFP tally.
As the threat of the pandemic grew across the region, a Guatemalan migrant died and more than 20 were wounded in a riot over coronavirus fears at a holding facility for Central American migrants in Mexico, officials said.
A protest by mostly Honduran migrants at the facility in southeastern Tabasco state turned violent late Tuesday after those inside set bedding ablaze amid fears over the spread of the virus.
Authorities had registered 537 deaths and 20,081 cases across the region by Wednesday afternoon.
Brazil recorded Latin America's first infection on February 26. With a population of 210 million, the South American giant is now the most affected country with 5,717 cases including 201 deaths.
President Jair Bolsonaro — who has repeatedly railed against social distancing measures he says are needlessly hurting the economy — found himself at the center of a row over spreading misinformation.
Bolsonaro posed a video online of a market supposedly hit by shortages caused by the pandemic. But he was forced to remove it hours later after journalists found the same market well stocked.
Bolsonaro has compared the coronavirus to a "little flu," and condemned the reaction to it as "hysteria," statements which have left him increasingly isolated, in Brazil and beyond.
Another leader criticized for taking the pandemic lightly, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, replaced his health minister.
Nicaragua's government has yet to enforce preventive measures common in other countries, including closing borders or prohibiting crowds.
It has reported five infections, with one death.
The minister, Carolina Davila, will remain as an advisor to the presidency however, the government said.
More than 300 Bolivians and dozens of Peruvians were stranded at a makeshift camp at Huara in Chile on Wednesday, after their countries' borders were shut due to the coronavirus.
Chile's Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel pleaded for understanding, saying "all countries have to face this from a humanitarian perspective, especially with regard to the return of people who are in a position to return."
The pandemic has compounded an already desperate situation facing millions of refugees and migrants who fled Venezuela's economic collapse, said Eduardo Stein, the UN special representative for Venezuelan migrants and refugees.
The UN refugee agency and the International Organization of Migration jointly called on the international community to boost aid for millions of Venezuelan migrants threatened by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly five million people have left since 2015, most ending up in Colombia and other neighboring South American countries, overwhelming healthcare systems.
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
- Latest
- Trending
