Latin America’s outbreak rivals Europe, mystery deaths in Nigeria & other global Covid news

As the Covid-19 pandemic shows no signs of letting up, ThePrint highlights the most important stories on the crisis from across the globe.

Inside the Rocinha favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Commons

New Delhi: The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate several countries across the world — with the latest global count at 43,42,685 cases and over 2,92,893 deaths. 

The emerging hotspots are now in Latin America where some cities have cases to rival the worst in Europe. 

Elsewhere across the globe, the US’s top pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci has warned of disastrous consequences if the lockdowns in the country are lifted too soon while mystery deaths in Nigeria have sparked fears of an unrecorded coronavirus surge.

ThePrint brings you the most important global stories on the coronavirus pandemic and why they matter.

Fauci warns of disastrous consequences if US opens too soon 

The divide between the US President Donald Trump and the experts advising him on the coronavirus response further accentuated Tuesday, when Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the US Senate Committee that reopening the US too soon could lead to “suffering and death” through uncontrollable outbreaks, the BBC is reporting.  

Over the past few weeks, the president’s attempts to quickly reopen the economy have been criticised by the scientific community advising him. 

“If economic interests are allowed to override public health concerns”, Dr. Fauci warned, “there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control.” That could result not only in “some suffering and death that could be avoided,” he said, “but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery,” noted a report in The New York Times. 

US House Democrats propose another $3 trillion stimulus  

In a fresh proposal, the US House Democrats have released a plan proposing $3 trillion of stimulus spending that would target local and state governments, the Financial Times is reporting.  

“The 1,815-page proposal, unveiled after governors in large US states like New York and California warned essential services could be curtailed without aid, includes $500bn for state governments and $375bn for local authorities struggling to balance increased costs and lower tax revenues triggered by the pandemic,” noted the report.  

The US Congress had earlier released a $3-trillion stimulus package since the pandemic outbreak in the country. But given that the country’s unemployment has soared to a post-war high of 14.7 per cent, the lawmakers are realizing that more needs to be done. 

Latin America’s outbreaks now rival Europe 

In a worrying report, The New York Times has published analysis that shows “some cities in Latin America have seen spikes in fatalities that match the worst of the pandemic elsewhere”.

“Deaths doubled in Lima, rivaling the worst month of the pandemic in Paris. They tripled in Manaus, a metropolis tucked deep in Brazil’s Amazon — a surge similar to what London and Madrid endured,” the report said. “In Guayaquil, a port city in Ecuador, the sudden spike in fatalities in April was comparable to what New York City experienced during its worst month: more than five times the number of people died than in previous years.”. 

Leave China? No thanks, Japanese firms say no to Tokyo’s aid

Japanese government has set out to provide subsidies to its companies in an attempt to convince them to diversify their supply chains out of China. But when it comes to the largest Japanese firms, they intend to reject their government’s offer and continue working in China, the South China Morning Post is reporting.  

“All five Japanese companies spoken to by This Week in Asia for this article said they intended to continue to manufacture in China on the grounds that it remains a critically important market and that it would be expensive and unnecessarily disruptive – particularly at the present time – to relocate a large part of their operations elsewhere,” noted the report. 

Twitter announces employees can work from home forever’ 

 In a surprise announcement, Twitter’s Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has announced that his employees can work from home “forever”, The Guardian is reporting. 

Twitter had mandated its employees to work from home from 11 March. And the new statement by Twitter says that the employees who prefer to work from home, can now do so “indefinitely”. 

In a blogpost the company said that they were able to do so given “emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere”. 

“The past few months have proven we can make that work. So if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen,” said a blogpost by Twitter. 

Twitter’s decisions are similar to that of other tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon — who have all extended their work-from-home policies at least until October 2020. 

Why strongmen love this pandemic

A new analysis by political risk consultancy, G Zero Media, looks at the benefits a pandemic brings about for authoritarian strongmen. “Around the world, states of emergency, lockdowns, and restrictions on information are creating a perfect opportunity for big power grabs, particularly in countries with weak or non-existent democracies,” noted G Zero Media.

There are particular opportunities a pandemic creates for strongmen. It allows them to quickly boost their power, use the crisis to stifle protests, ramp up state’s surveillance systems through contact-tracing apps, and cracking down on free speech or press.

But these opportunities also come with major risks. “To tackle a health crisis you need capable bureaucrats to execute complex plans. But if you — like most strongmen — have chosen your ministers and governors more for loyalty than competence, they’ll quickly face problems that force them to choose between protecting the public’s health and protecting the leader’s authority,” it says. 

‘Oldest woman in Spain’ beats coronavirus at 113

Maria Branyas, a 113-year-old Spanish woman — believed to be the oldest person living in Spain — has beaten all odds and recover from the novel coronavirus, the BBC is reporting. 

Branyas had tested positive in March, but has managed to recover after just a few weeks in isolation. “Born in Mexico in 1907, she moved north to San Francisco two years later and arrived in the Catalan province of Girona during World War One with her Spanish journalist father,” said the report. “It means she has lived through the flu pandemic of 1918-19, the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and the coronavirus.”

Mystery deaths in Nigeria spark fears of unrecorded surge

Many mysterious deaths in northern Nigeria have led to speculation that the state of coronavirus pandemic in the country might be much worse than imagined, the Financial Times is reporting.  

“Ten weeks after Nigeria reported sub-Saharan Africa’s first coronavirus case, the country has recorded 4,400 infections out of a population of more than 200m. That is compared with about 4,300 cases in Ghana, where the population is only 30m, 10,000 cases in South Africa and 9,400 cases in Egypt,” noted the report. 

Nigeria’s testing rate has been abysmally low. It has just tested 27,000 people, compared to 3,56,000 in South Africa, which has a third of Nigeria’s population. 

What else we are reading:

Coronavirus outbreak puts Japan’s singles in mood for matrimony: Nikkei Asian Review

In Israel, Modern Medicine Grapples With Ghosts of the Third Reich: The New York Times

In a time of global crisis, should the world cancel poor countries’ debts?: Washington Post

As Brazil’s challenges multiply, Bolsonaro’s fans call for a military takeover: Washington Post