Coronavirus Update: COVID-19 Cases Show Largest Increase
largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases worldwide
The World Health Organization on Sunday reported the largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases by its count, at more than 183,000 new cases in the latest 24 hours.
The UN health agency said Brazil led the way with 54,771 cases tallied and the U.S. next at 36,617. Over 15,400 came in in India.
Experts said rising case counts can reflect multiple factors including more widespread testing as well as broader infection.
US coronavirus deaths near 120,000
South Korea: Fears on losing control of virus second wave
the mayor of South Korea’s capital fears the country is losing control over a virus resurgence and said Seoul will reimpose stronger social distancing measures if the daily jump in infections doesn’t come below an average of 30 over the next three days.
“If Seoul gets penetrated (by the virus), the entire Republic of Korea gets penetrated,” Park Won-soon said in a televised briefing.
Brazil’s virus death toll tops 50,000
Brazil has reported 641 more deaths from coronavirus over the past day, becoming the second country worldwide with a death toll topping 50,000.
The country’s health ministry said the overall fatalities have mounted to 50,617, according to public news agency Agencia Brasil.
Meanwhile, 17,000 new infections were reported over the past day, taking the nationwide case-count to over 1.08 million.
Brazil is one of the world’s hardest-hit regions due to the virus, and now in second place after the US in the death toll.
India’s infections soaring in rural areas
India’s coronavirus caseload has risen to 425,282 as infections soar in rural areas to which migrant workers fleeing major cities have returned in recent weeks.
India’s health ministry on Monday reported 14,821 new cases and about 300 new deaths, bring the toll of fatalities up to more than 13,000. The coastal state of Goa reported its first COVID-19 death.
India’s government planning body Niti Aayog says infections have now emerged in 98 out of 112 of the country’s poorest districts.
Mexico: Coronavirus tore through Latin America’s largest market
In Mexico City, the epicenter of the country’s epidemic, officials are now ramping up testing and contact tracing. Belatedly, the city-owned market has dispatched health workers to check on the use of face masks and antibacterial gel and to provide temperature checks.
“At the beginning, workers didn’t take the necessary precautions,” said Claudia Pérez Ocampo, the manager of one stall. “When they saw people dying, they began to protect themselves. But it hit many people.
“More than anything, it hit the tomato men,” she said. “A lot of tomato men.”
Deep in the market, in Aisle Q-R, a half-dozen tomato vendors had already died. They included Mateo, who succumbed on April 18. Over three decades, he’d become a fixture of the tomato aisle, a man who would lend others his truck, who always had a smile, who powered through 10-hour days before finally flopping into a chair to watch action movies on Netflix.
Officials have reported more than 20,000 coronavirus deaths in Mexico, undoubtedly an undercount. The virus appears to have entered the country with the upper class — people returning from business trips in Italy and skiing holidays in Colorado. But it spread quickly to low-income workers, who have been hit particularly hard.
The tomato aisle at Mexico City’s famed Central de Abasto market offers a glimpse into why the virus has hit the country so hard. It scythed its way through the sprawling complex, picking off workers made vulnerable by the problems of poverty: chronic illnesses, distrust of government, a need to keep earning money.
While there are no official data, vendors can name dozens of people in the vegetable aisles alone who lost their lives — green-bean sellers, chili vendors, potato men — in one of the most brutal outbreaks in the city.
Brazil and the U.S. Drive New Coronavirus Infections
The W.H.O. reported more than 183,000 new cases, the largest one-day increase so far, as the global tally inched toward nine million. A Trump administration official said the White House was preparing for a potential wave of infections in the fall.
Trump’s ‘kidding’ on testing exposes his negligence as virus spikes
s the coronavirus pandemic surges in states that embraced his calls for aggressive early openings, President Donald Trump is mocking the very measures that might mitigate a crisis about which he is constantly in denial.
Trump said at his weekend rally that he had told his staff to slow down testing for the disease, which has now killed nearly 120,000 Americans, to hide the discovery of more cases. Claims by his advisers that he was joking hardly lessen the questionable motives behind the remark.
Trump has meanwhile also helped to turn the wearing of masks, which is proven to slow transmission of the disease, into a culture war issue. And his rally in Oklahoma on Saturday night was a rebuke of the notion of social distancing – even though, ironically, his smaller-than-expected crowd would have made such practices possible. Health experts warn that spikes in infections in states like Florida and Arizona – both of which recorded new highs in daily infection rates over the weekend – are being driven by the public’s waning willingness to avoid large gatherings and a reticence to wear masks.