WHO urges Pakistan to return to lockdown as hospitals struggle

The World Health Organization has taken the unusual step of urging Pakistan to return to lockdown, suggesting the country implement restrictions in a cycle of two weeks on, two weeks off.

While Pakistan has relatively low testing rates, one in four people who are tested return a positive result, the WHO said in a letter to Punjab’s provincial health minister, Yasmin Rashid. Prime Minister Imran Khan has resisted a national lockdown, arguing the country cannot afford it, and provinces have instead introduced patchwork lockdowns. Last week Khan said these would be lifted.

But, with 108,317 known cases and 2,172 confirmed deaths, hospitals across the south Asian country say they are at or near capacity, with some turning Covid-19 patients away.

Globally, the WHO confirmed the biggest ever one-day rise in confirmed cases this week, with 136,000 cases in 24 hours, according to director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Most were from south Asia and the Americas.

Argentina confirmed more than 1,000 cases in a single day for the first time on Wednesday, days after lockdown measures were extended in Buenos Aires, the centre of the country’s virus outbreak.

Argentina’s Health Ministry logged 1,141 new cases in the previous 24 hours, as well 24 deaths, pushing its totals to 24,761 cases and 717 deaths since the outbreak began in early March.

Elsewhere in the Americas, the Brazilian government restored coronavirus figures on its official website, after a supreme court justice on Tuesday ruled that the full details should be reinstated. On Saturday, the Brazilian government removed data relating to the pandemic from the health ministry website, and announced it would stop publishing the cumulative death toll or number of infections. President Jair Bolsonaro has consistently sought to play down the severity of the coronavirus, dismissing it as a “little flu”. Brazil has the second-highest number of cases worldwide, with close to 740,000, and more than 38,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Chile meanwhile reported 3,913 cases on Tuesday.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert in the US, warned on Tuesday the pandemic was “far from over,” and that he was surprised at how “rapidly it just took over the planet”. Speaking in a videotaped discussion at a Biotechnology Innovation Organization conference, Fauci said: “I mean, Ebola was scary. But Ebola would never be easily transmitted in a global way.” He added: “HIV, as important as it is, was drawn out over an extended period of time.”

He warned that the world was still at the start of seeing the coronavirus pandemic’s effects. “Oh my goodness,” Fauci said. “Where is it going to end? We’re still at the beginning of it.”

On Tuesday, 21 US states reported weekly increases in new cases. Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posted rises of 40% or higher for the week ending Sunday, compared with the prior seven days, according to a Reuters analysis.

Spikes in cases and hospitalisations in parts of California and the US south-west prompted Arizona to reactivate its emergency plan for medical facilities and California to place counties where half its population lives on a watch list.

The rise in cases, which could lead authorities to reimpose or tighten public health restrictions aimed at slowing the virus’ spread, complicates efforts by Donald Trump to reopen the US economy and hold election rallies once more.