Coronavirus: World Health Organisation Reports Record Increase in New COVID-19 Cases in 24-hour Period.

WHO warns pandemic accelerating as it reports record daily global case rise while outbreak surges in Brazil, India with the total rising by 183,020 in 24 hours. This is the biggest rise with almost two-thirds of the new infections seen in North and South America with around 116,041 new cases.

Total global cases are over 8.7 million with more than 461,000 deaths, according to the WHO. The previous record for new cases was 181,232 on June 18.

Brazil officially passed the 50,000 mark, with 50,617 coronavirus deaths as of Sunday. It has recorded 1,085,038 cases to date, according to the country’s health ministry. Followed by the United States with 36,617 (690 deaths) and India with more than 15,400 infections (306 deaths), the UN health agency said.

Indian authorities said this was in part due to a backlog in data from Delhi and Mumbai, while officials in Brazil said the significant increase was also partly down to a lag in reporting from three states (Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo), compounding data from two days.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual health forum organized by the Dubai authorities that the greatest threat facing the world is not the virus itself, but “the lack of global solidarity and global leadership”.

“We cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world,” he said. “The politicization of the pandemic has exacerbated it. None of us is safe until all of us are safe.”

The WHO had last week warned of a new and dangerous phase of the coronavirus pandemic, with people tiring of lockdowns despite the disease’s rapid spread. The disease is still surging in the Americas and parts of Asia, even as European countries start to ease their restrictive measures.

“The pandemic is still accelerating,” Dr. Tedros told the online conference yesterday. “We know that the pandemic is much more than a health crisis, it is an economic crisis, a social crisis, and in many countries a political crisis,” he added. “Its effects will be felt for decades to come.”

A vaccine remains months off at best, and scientists are still discovering more about the virus and the extent to which it may have spread before being identified.

Reporting by Winsala Gbotemi, Staff Writer EGM. Create Your Trading Account!

Originally published at https://www.egmanalytics.com on June 22, 2020.