S America new corona epicenter: WHO

WASHINGTON: The World Health Organisation (WHO) Friday declared South America “a new epicentre” of the coronavirus pandemic, as the number of cases continues to rise in Brazil and Mexico.

China meanwhile warned that its economy would suffer an immense hit from the coronavirus and decided not to declare a target for growth, underscoring the setback from the pandemic.

Surges in infections across much of Central and South America continued to drive the global toll higher even as hard-hit nations in Europe, along with the United States, sought to move into a cautious recovery phase with new infections dipping.

Premier Li Keqiang told hundreds of mask-wearing representatives at the National People’s Congress that the pandemic brought “great uncertainty” to the country’s huge economy.

Brazil this week become the latest flashpoint as it death toll surged past 20,000 — and with 310,000 cases the Latin American giant is now the third most affected country behind the United States and Russia.

“In a sense, South America has become a new epicenter for the disease,” said WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan.

“Clearly, there is a concern across many of those countries, but clearly the most affected is Brazil at this point,” he said.

Most of Brazil’s cases are in densely populated Sao Paulo, but the highest rate of infection is in the state of Amazonas, at about 490 people infected per 100,000 population, he said.

Unlike in Europe and the United States, where the elderly were hardest-hit, in Brazil a significant number of deaths are among younger people, who are often driven by poverty to work despite the dangers.

“Since Brazil has a younger population, it’s normal for the number of cases to be higher among under-60s,” said Mauro Sanchez, an epidemiologist at the University of Brasilia.

“What’s perverse is that a lot of the people who are exposing themselves to the virus are doing it because they don’t have a choice,” said Sanchez.

As the toll mounts, grave-diggers at a cemetery outside Sao Paulo were scrambling to keep up.

“We’ve been working 12-hour days, burying them one after the other. It doesn’t stop,” said one worker at Vila Formosa, wearing a white protective suit, mask and face shield.

In Washington President Trump, facing an uphill battle to be reelected in November, continued to pressure state and local governments to reopen the American economy — even as the toll continues to rise in the world’s hardest-hit country, where COVID-19 had claimed almost 96,000 lives as of Friday according to Johns Hopkins University.

Trump demanded state governors classify churches, synagogues and mosques as “essential services” on the same level as food and drug stores, and immediately allow them to hold services despite COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings.