{"id":28280,"date":"2020-06-22T23:54:14","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T18:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=28280"},"modified":"2020-06-22T23:54:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T18:24:14","slug":"who-director-warns-world-leaders-not-to-politicize-coronavirus-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=28280","title":{"rendered":"WHO Director Warns World Leaders Not to ‘Politicize’ Coronavirus Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AP<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dubai<\/strong>, United Arab Emirates<\/strong>: World leaders must not politicize the coronavirus pandemic but unite to fight it, the head of the World Health Organization warned Monday, reminding all that the pandemic is still accelerating and producing record daily increases in infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The comments by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has faced criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, came as the number of reported infections soared in Brazil, Iraq, India and southern and western U.S. states, straining local hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took over three months for the world to see 1 million virus infections, but the last 1 million cases have come in just eight days, Tedros said during a videoconference for the Dubai-based World Government Summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Tedros never mentioned Trump\u2019s name or the fact that he is determined to pull the United States out of the U.N. health agency but warned against \u201cpoliticizing\u201d the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself, it\u2019s the lack of global solidarity and global leadership,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Trump has criticized the WHO for its early response to the outbreak and what he considers its excessive praise of China, where the outbreak began, as his administration\u2019s response in the U.S. has come under scrutiny. In response, Trump has threatened to end all U.S. funding for the WHO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 9 million people have been infected by the virus worldwide and more than 468,000 have died, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the actual numbers are much higher, due to limited testing and asymptomatic cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that, indeed, the world was not prepared,\u201d Tedros said. \u201cGlobally, the pandemic is still accelerating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies around the world are racing to find a vaccine to counter COVID-19 and there is a fierce debate about how to make sure that vaccine is distributed fairly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Speaking later in the conference, WHO\u2019s special envoy on COVID-19, Dr. David Nabarro, said he believed it would be \u201c2 1\/2 years until there will be vaccine for everybody in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if there\u2019s a candidate by the end of the year, the safety and efficacy tests will take some time,\u201d the British physician said. \u201cAnd then the effort has to be put into producing large amounts of vaccine so everyone in the world can get it and then organizing the vaccination programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

He added: \u201cI would love it to be proved wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s spokesman said \u201ceverything needs to be done\u201d to control an outbreak linked to a large slaughterhouse has infected over 1,300 people. Authorities started mass testing of all workers at the Toennies meat plant in the western Guetersloh region and have put thousands of people into quarantine. Authorities have dispatched virologists, contact tracing teams and the German army to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an outbreak that needs to be taken very seriously,\u201d Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s health care system has been slammed by the virus. The country\u2019s caseload climbed by nearly 15,000 Monday to 425,282, with more than 13,000 deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

After easing a nationwide lockdown, the Indian government ran special trains to return thousands of migrant workers to their villages in recent weeks. Nearly 90% of India\u2019s poorest districts have cases, although the outbreak remains centered in Delhi, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu states, which are home to major cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Pakistan, infections are accelerating and hospitals are having to turn away patients, with new cases up to 6,800 a day. The government has relaxed pandemic restrictions, hoping to salvage a near-collapsed economy as the number of people living in poverty has risen to 40% of the population of 220 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

In Iraq, masked workers were setting up makeshift coronavirus wards in Baghdad\u2019s vast exhibition grounds as a long-dreaded spike in infections strained its overstretched hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than two-thirds of the new deaths of late have been reported in the Americas. The coronavirus has killed about 120,000 people across the U.S., over 50,000 in Brazil and nearly 22,000 in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

U.S. authorities have reported more than 30,000 new infections a day recently but in New York City, once the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, Monday was a key day for lifting many coronavirus lockdown restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Eve Gonzalez, a food industry worker in New York whose job hasn\u2019t yet resumed, feels it\u2019s too soon to relax restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m dying to go out, but people\u2019s health is more important,\u201d said Gonzalez, 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infections have slowed in China and South Korea, suggesting some progress in stemming their newest outbreaks. South Korea reported 17 new cases, the first time its daily increase fell to under 20 in nearly a month and Beijing\u2019s increase was in single digits for the first time in eight days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The U.N. AIDS agency, meanwhile, warned that the pandemic could jeopardize the supply of AIDS drugs in developing countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNAIDS said lockdowns and border closures adopted to stop the spread of COVID-19 were affecting both the production and distribution of the medicines, which could result in higher costs and deadly shortages in the next two months. As of last year, UNAIDS estimated more than 24 million people were on life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AP Dubai, United Arab Emirates: World leaders must not politicize the coronavirus pandemic but unite to fight it, the head of the World Health Organization warned Monday, reminding all that the pandemic is still accelerating and producing record daily increases in infections. The comments by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has faced criticism from U.S. President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}