The coronavirus hits the world again

Nice returns to the obligation to wear the mask on public transport. From next Monday, July 11, all the residents and tourists of the representative city of the French Côte d’Azur must recover this precautionary measure against Covid-19 in buses and trams, according to a municipal decree that, in the opinion of the mayor , Christian Estrosi, may end up spreading to the entire country. The Government of Emmanuel Macon now limits itself to recommending its use, but the exorbitant escalation of the coronavirus in France, with 206,000 new infections in a single day, seems to announce that the arrival of a new wave will not be stopped only with advice.

In France it is the seventh wave. In Spain the eighth is glimpsed. In other countries it is counted as the fifth. But the fact is that a notable majority of nations register a trend of increasing infections. In South America, the Pan American Health Organization affirms that the epidemic has grown by 25% and is especially hitting Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, the third country in the world in number of infections (32.5 million since March 2020), only preceded by the United States (90 million) and India (44). As of July 1, Spain ranked eleventh among the territories most affected by the virus, with an estimate of 12.7 million cases.

The new French Minister of Health, François Braun, a doctor specialized in emergencies, urged on Tuesday that all people at risk be vaccinated again and asked citizens to use the mask “in crowded places.” A day earlier, the Executive had launched a health emergency bill. If the Parliament approves it, the neighboring country will impose new health regulations, less restrictive than those previously applied but that recover, for example, the possibility of reinstating a health passport to enter the country. In that case, it would be a pioneer State of the European Union in returning to the limitations on intra-community travel.

The mere probability of this happening is a blow to an EU that wants at all costs to promote economic recovery and preserve the normalcy achieved in recent months, despite being fully aware that the pandemic is still there. At the end of June, the World Health Organization (WHO) ordered all European governments to closely monitor the course of the epidemic due to the rise in infections, caused especially by the BA.5 subvariant of omicron. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently re-elected as head of the WHO, reported at a press conference that cases have increased by 20% and that deaths have increased in three of the six health regions of the planet, for which he advised reinforcing the vaccination until 70% of the world population is immunized. In the past year and a half, the agency has distributed more than 12 billion doses.

An employee disinfects a street in La Paz in Bolivia before a demonstration of toilets /

Reuters

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) agrees with this x-ray. In Latin America, there is concern that eleven countries show vaccination figures below 40% of the census and in others only acceptable margins are around, which means that 224 million people have not yet received the first dose. This gap, together with the ease of transmission of the new subvariants, has brought back to the present situations typical of the most tense times of the epidemic. The latest bulletin provided by the Brazilian Ministry of Health indicates that on Tuesday there were 74,591 positives in 24 hours and, worst of all, 396 deaths, the highest figure since the 485 deaths that this country recorded on March 17. Brazil is the territory with the most deaths associated with covid (672,429) after the United States, where it exceeds one million deaths.

“In South America there has been a significant increase in the incidence of Covid-19, with almost half a million new cases reported during the last week, which represents an increase of 24.6% compared to the previous week,” explains the director. of PAHO, Carissa Etienne. However, doctors consider that the real number of infected must necessarily be much higher, since the majority of the self-diagnostic tests whose sale has been widespread in pharmacies escape from the official counts.

Experts note that the upward curve in South America has intensified with the arrival of the southern winter, which puts more respiratory diseases in circulation. In the European case, the escalation seems to be more closely related to mobility and summer concentrations, which interact with the higher contagiousness of the virus and the decline of protective measures such as the mask and the safety distance. Precautions that governments such as those of Brazil, Bolivia or Argentina recommend again.

The WHO fears that this escalation is only the prologue to a powerful coronavirus episode ahead of its natural date, between next fall and winter. The German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, has already warned that “the announced summer wave is unfortunately already a reality” and will provide “little relief” to Germans in the coming weeks. The country has 818,000 active cases. There have been 92,344 positives and 112 deaths in a single day. The ministry estimates that the viral peak will arrive in mid-July with the BA.5 subvariant causing 50% of infections and BA.4 in another 16% of infections.

A Hong Kong resident undergoes a coronavirus test on the street

afp

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Apart from Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain are among the first eleven countries with the highest volume of infections, a list that also includes Russia and that demonstrates Europe’s vulnerability to the coronavirus and its new variants. Omicron, in fact, was detected for the first time outside of South Africa in Oslo (Norway) last December when dozens of people were infected during a company dinner. But despite the fact that the situation in this environment is worrying, the crisis where it really alarms is in China. More than one hundred million people have suffered restrictions or live in confinement since this first weekend of July a rebound in cases was detected. Their presence is increasing in the city of Shanghai, where bars, restaurants and karaoke venues have been closed and a new population screening operation has begun.

Although this Wednesday the immense city of 26 million inhabitants only released 24 new patients – and 300 in the entire country – the authorities have decided to carry out tests in half of its districts. The population came out of a strict two-month lockdown five weeks ago and now fears returning to a similar situation, especially in view of what is happening in Anhui province, where 1.7 million citizens from rural villages are locked up in their homes, or Xi’an, whose thirteen million residents have been subjected to “temporary control measures” since Saturday. In total, some 114 million Chinese are subject to closures or limitations on their movements as part of the ‘covid zero’ program launched by the Government, whose objective is to eradicate the outbreaks at the root to avoid a pandemic of great proportions in the nation with the largest population, and also the oldest, in the world.