461,504 Deaths and 8,734,972
Corona Virus Infections, Mostly in the US, Brazil, UK, Italy,
France, Spain, and Mexico
June 19, 2020
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A demonstrator speaks during a protest, in Simi Valley,
California over the death of George Floyd, June 6, 2020 |
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As of June 19, 2020, 22:23 GMT,
World: 8,734,972 infection cases,
and 461,504 deaths.
***
A list of countries with the highest Coronavirus (Covid-19)
deaths:
1.
USA 2,294,047 infection cases, and
121,376 deaths.
2.
Brazil 1,032,913 infection cases,
and 48,954 deaths.
3.
UK 301,815 infection cases, and
42,461
deaths.
4.
Italy 238,011 infection cases, and
34,561
deaths.
5.
France 159,452 infection cases, and
29,617 deaths.
6.
Spain 292,655 infection cases, and
28,315
deaths.
7.
Mexico 165,455 infection cases,
and 19,747 deaths.
8.
India 395,812 infection cases, and
12,970 deaths.
9.
Iran 200,262 infection cases, and
9,392
deaths.
10.
Germany 190,660 infection cases, and 8,960
deaths.
11.
Russia 569,063 infection cases,
and 7,841 deaths.
12.
Peru 247,925 infection cases, and
7,660
deaths.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
***
WHO Director-General's opening remarks at
the media briefing on COVID-19 - 19 June 2020
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
The pandemic is
accelerating.
More than 150 thousand new cases of COVID-19 were
reported to WHO yesterday – the most in a single day so far.
Almost half of those cases were reported from the Americas, with large
numbers also being reported from South Asia and the Middle East.
The world is in a new and dangerous phase. Many people are
understandably fed up with being at home. Countries are understandably
eager to open up their societies and economies.
But the virus is
still spreading fast, it’s still deadly, and most people are still
susceptible.
We call on all countries and all people to exercise
extreme vigilance.
Continue maintaining your distance from
others. Stay home if you feel sick. Keep covering your nose and mouth
when you cough. Wear a mask when appropriate. Keep cleaning your hands.
We continue to call on all countries to focus on the basics: find,
isolate, test and care for every case. Trace and quarantine every
contact.
As the pandemic gathers pace, it’s the most vulnerable
who will suffer the most.
All countries rich and poor have
populations who are vulnerable to a higher risk of severe disease and
death.
Tomorrow is World Refugee Day – an important moment to
highlight the risks of COVID-19 for some of the world’s most vulnerable
people.
Refugees are particularly at risk of COVID-19 because
they often have limited access to adequate shelter, water, nutrition,
sanitation, and health services.
Over 80 per cent of the world’s
refugees and nearly all the world’s internally displaced people are
hosted in low- and middle-income countries.
WHO is deeply
concerned about the very real and present danger of widespread
transmission of COVID-19 in refugee camps.
Beyond the health
threat posed by the virus, COVID-19 is also exposing many refugees to
even more severe hardship.
A report published today by the
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement shows that about 70
percent of refugees surveyed in Turkey reported having lost their jobs
since the start of the pandemic.
We have a shared duty to do
everything we can to prevent, detect and respond to transmission of
COVID-19 among refugee populations.
Public health measures that
reduce transmission of COVID-19 require strict and sustained
implementation. This is difficult to achieve in refugee camps, where the
public health situation is weak.
It’s an honour to be here today
with my brother Mr Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees.
UNHCR’s primary purpose is to safeguard the rights
and well-being of refugees.
WHO’s mission is to promote health,
keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable.
Our organizations
are a natural fit and every day WHO and UNHCR work to strengthen the
collaboration between our two agencies.
Last month, our two
organizations signed a new agreement to strengthen and advance public
health services for the millions of forcibly displaced people around the
world.
COVID-19 has demonstrated that no one is safe until we’re
all safe. Only by putting politics aside and working in true
collaboration can we make a difference.
We are most vulnerable
when we are divided, but with solidarity and cooperation, we will
overcome this pandemic, and be better prepared for the crises of the
future.
***
WHO Director-General's opening remarks at
the media briefing on COVID-19 - 17 June 2020
17 June 2020
ÇáÚÑÈíÉ
中文
Français
Русский
Español
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
The world has
now recorded more than 8 million cases of COVID-19.
In the first
two months, 85,000 cases were reported.
But in the past two
months 6 million cases have been reported.
There have been more
than 435,000 deaths and in the Americas, Africa and South Asia; cases
are still rapidly rising.
However, there are green shoots of
hope, which show that together through global solidarity, humanity can
overcome this pandemic.
We now have good examples of many
countries that have shown how to effectively suppress the virus with a
combination of testing, tracing, and quarantining patients and caring
for those that get sick.
Lab capacity has been dramatically
enhanced across the world to boost COVID-19 testing, which is critical
for identifying where the virus is and informing government actions.
New mega hubs have been established that are now key to the
distribution of personal protective equipment, which includes millions
of masks, goggles, aprons and gloves; as well as other medical supplies.
Tech companies have developed applications that can assist with the
critical task of contact tracing.
And there has been an enormous
effort to accelerate the science around the pandemic.
Early on in
the outbreak; on 11 February, WHO convened a Research and Innovation
Forum on COVID-19, where hundreds of researchers came together from
across the world with the aim of quickly developing quality diagnostics,
therapeutics and vaccines.
One of the key priorities identified
was for the world to focus on accelerating research around treating
patients with COVID-19.
Specifically, researchers agreed to
investigate existing drugs with potential, including steroids.
WHO also developed a core protocol, which has been adapted and used by
researchers around the world.
And yesterday, there was the
welcome news of positive initial results from the RECOVERY trial in the
United Kingdom.
Dexamethasone, a common steroid, has been shown
to have a beneficial effect on those patients severely ill with
COVID-19.
According to the early findings shared with WHO, for
patients on oxygen alone the treatment was shown to reduce mortality by
about one fifth.
And for patients requiring a ventilator,
mortality was reduced by about one third.
However, dexamethasone
was shown to not have a beneficial effect for those with milder disease,
who did not need respiratory support.
This is very welcome news
for those patients with severe illness, these drugs should only be used
under close clinical supervision.
We need more therapeutics that
can be used to tackle the virus, including those with milder symptoms.
WHO has now started to coordinate a meta-analysis pooling data from
several clinical trials to increase our overall understanding of this
intervention.
And, we will update our clinical guidance to
reflect how and when dexamethasone should be used to treat COVID-19.
I want to thank the United Kingdom government, the University of
Oxford, and the many hospitals, researchers, patients and families who
have contributed to this scientific breakthrough.
WHO will
continue to work with all partners to develop other therapeutics and
vaccines for COVID-19, including through the Access to COVID-19 Tools
Accelerator.
Over the coming weeks and months, we hope there
will be more treatments that improve patient outcomes and save lives.
While we are searching for COVID-19 treatments we must continue
strong efforts to prevent as many infections as possible by finding,
isolating, testing and caring for every case; and tracing and
quarantining every contact.
===
COVID-19 is affecting the
whole world but it’s important to remember that for the most vulnerable
communities, this is just one of many threats they face.
We have
consistently stressed the importance of ensuring essential health
services continue, including routine vaccination and services for
malaria, TB and HIV.
Today, I want to touch on Neglected Tropical
Diseases, an issue I care deeply about.
NTDs are a group of 20
diseases including elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, leprosy, trachoma
and intestinal worms that collectively wreak havoc on the poorest and
most marginalized communities.
These diseases disfigure, disable
and can kill, and they strike hardest in places of poverty and in remote
areas where access to quality health services is extremely limited.
WHO and partners have developed a new roadmap, which moves away from
single disease programmes to integrated approaches to the prevention,
diagnosis and treatment of neglected tropical diseases, as part of an
overall movement toward universal health coverage.
The NTD
roadmap puts greater ownership on national and local governments to
drive action.
Like with COVID-19, it calls for greater
collaboration between governments, academia, civil society and the
private sector in order to boost innovation and access to health
technologies.
I have seen first hand the courage of people who
are living with NTDS, which is why I call on countries not to forget
about the most vulnerable.
===
Together, we can achieve
anything and I am encouraged by progress in tackling the Ebola outbreak
in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
If there are no
more cases in the next seven days, the Government of DRC will be able to
declare the outbreak over.
The lessons learned and experience
gained by Congolese health workers are now being applied to inform the
Ebola outbreak response in the West of the DRC, as well as broader
lessons on testing and contact tracing, which are directly transferable
for tackling COVID-19.
I thank you.
https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---17-june-2020+
***
Protest crowds a challenge for tracking virus
infections
By JOHN ANTCZAK and AMY TAXIN, Associated Press
June 19, 2020
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
California health officials so far report only a few people who
attended protests against police brutality have tested positive for the
coronavirus but already they are seeing the futility in trying to track
down all in the crowds who could have been infected by them.
California was the first state to impose a stay-at-home order and in
recent weeks has accelerated the pace of reopening the economy and
loosening restrictions on where people can go. The state's rollback
plans were laid with the idea there wouldn't yet be large crowds but
after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd thousands of
protesters have filled the streets in major cities and dozens of smaller
locations had crowds above 100.
Many demonstrators didn’t practice physical distancing or wear masks
— twin pillars of the fight to limit spread of the virus. On Thursday,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom started requiring face coverings in most
indoor settings and outdoors when distancing from others isn’t possible.
“The risk is broad, but low” at protests, said Dr. George Rutherford,
an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “It
all depends on what proportion of people wear masks.”
California has been moving forward on a four-phase plan to reopen its
economy and allow greater freedom of movement for its 40 million
residents. To open more businesses, counties must show they have
sufficient testing capacity and enough “contact tracers" to interview
those infected about who they may have exposed.
Ideally, the infected person can provide names and contact
information for people who had been around them but that's not possible
when the person has been surrounded by strangers at a protest.
Some county health officials have urged anyone who attended protests
get tested for the coronavirus. Los Angeles County, where some
demonstrators have tested positive for the virus, has urged those who
attended protests and were around people without masks for as little as
15 minutes consider self-quarantining for 14 days.
LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said there are more
than 1,000 contact tracers in the county of 10 million people who make
thousands of calls daily to try to reach those exposed to the virus. But
she said that isn't possible for virus cases among protesters.
“The contact tracing will get extraordinarily hard in those crowded
situations,” she said.
Large demonstrations began May 29 and while they tapered after a week
or so in most locations they continue to attract crowds in cities
including Los Angeles and San Francisco. It takes up to two weeks for
symptoms to appear, and longer for people to seek testing and get
results, so any surge from the early days of the protests could
materialize over the next week.
Contact tracing, which has long been used to stem other communicable
diseases, is seen as critical to halting COVID-19. But patients don’t
always remember everyone they’ve seen over the course of such a long
incubation period and some may be reluctant to share information with
the government knowing those people will be asked to quarantine.
Orange and Sacramento counties are among those that have reported
virus cases among demonstrators, but so far no indications of an
outbreak, health officials said.
In Sacramento County, three people tested positive and one refused to
share details about the protest with those tasked with tracing the
infections. The other two attended so many events officials felt issuing
specific warnings would be futile and just urged all demonstrators to
consider getting tested, said Dr. Olivia Kasirye, the county's public
health officer.
“Right now we don’t have enough detail to be more specific,” Kasirye
said, adding the contact tracers continue to follow up with those who
were infected.
Dr. Matthew Zahn, medical director of the Orange County health care
agency’s communicable disease control division, said the county's
contact tracers reach those infected about 85 percent of the time. In
smaller outbreaks of other illnesses, contact tracers might go to a
person's house to follow up, but that's not possible in a pandemic with
hundreds of new cases each day, he said.
“Contact tracing is an exceedingly important part of the public
health response, but to perceive of it as a silver bullet I think is a
misunderstanding,” Zahn said.
Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County’s health officer, said he
doesn’t know of cases in his county tied to protests. But that doesn't
mean they haven't occurred.
“Out in the community, all bets are off,” he said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/protest-crowds-a-challenge-for-tracking-virus-infections/ar-BB15JafS?ocid=msedgntp
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