Coronavirus latest: global cases top 6 million; mosques reopen in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem; Brazil passes France in deaths; backlash against Trump exiting WHO
- Trump faced a broad backlash over severing ties with the WHO; Japan mulls easing entry limits for four countries, report says
- Brazil has the world’s fourth-highest death toll; India to start lifting lockdown in phases from Monday
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide topped six million Sunday, with Brazil registering another record surge in daily infections as divisions deepened on how to deal with the pandemic.
Latin American countries are bracing for difficult weeks ahead as the disease spreads rapidly across the region, even as much of the world exits lockdowns that have wrecked economies and stripped millions of their jobs.
In Brazil – the epicentre of South America’s outbreak with nearly 500,000 confirmed cases, lagging only behind the United States – disagreement among leaders over lockdown measures has hampered efforts to slow the virus as the number of fatalities in the country nears 30,000.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who fears the economic fallout from stay-at-home measures will be worse than the virus, has berated governors and mayors for imposing what he calls “the tyranny of total quarantine”.
As the global death toll from the pandemic surpassed 368,000, US President Donald Trump’s decision to permanently cut funding to the World Health Organisation has been broadly criticised.
The first 41 cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Wuhan, China, on January 10 and it took the world until April 1 to reach its first million cases. Since then, about 1 million new cases are reported every two weeks.