US surpasses 700,000 coronavirus cases; toll tops 36,000

Sao Paulo, June 20: Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States.

The country’s health ministry said that the total now stood at 10,32,913, up more than 50,000 from Thursday. The ministry said the sharp increase was due to corrections of previous days’ underreported numbers.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro still downplays the risks of the virus after nearly 50,000 deaths from COVID-19 in three months, saying the impact of social isolation measures on the economy could be worse than the disease itself.

Specialists believe the actual number of cases in Brazil could be up to seven times higher than the official statistic. Johns Hopkins University says Brazil is performing an average of 14 tests per 1,00,000 people each day, and health experts say that number is up to 20 times less than needed to track the virus.

Official data show a downward trend of the virus in Brazil’s north, including the hard-hit region of the Amazon, a plateau in cases and deaths in the countries’ biggest cities near the Atlantic coast, but a rising curve in the south.

In the Brazilian countryside, which is much less prepared to handle a crisis, the pandemic is clearly growing. Many smaller cities have weaker health care systems and basic sanitation that’s insufficient to prevent contagion.

“There is a lot of regional inequality in our public health system and a shortage of professionals in the interior,” said Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil’s Institute for Health Policy Studies, which advises public health officials.

That creates many health care deserts, with people going long distances to get attention. When they leave the hospital, the virus can go with them.

The cattle-producing state of Mato Grosso was barely touched by the virus when it hit the nation’s biggest cities in March. Sitting far from the coast, between the Bolivian border and Brazil’s capital of Brasilia, its 33 lakh residents led a mostly normal life until May. But now its people live under lockdown and meat producers have dozens of infected workers.

In Tangará da Serra, a city of 1,03,000 people in Mato Grosso, the mayor decided Friday to forbid the sale of alcoholic drinks for two weeks as an incentive for people to stay home.

Fᢩo Junqueira said the measure was needed after a spike in COVID-19 cases that filled 80% of the city’s 54 intensive care beds. The city has had nearly 300 cases of the disease, plus three fatalities.

In Rondonópolis, only 300 miles away from Tangará da Serra and home to a thriving economy, health authorities closed the local meatpacking industry after 92 cases were confirmed there. The city of 1,44,000 inhabitants counted 21 deaths from the virus and more than 600 cases. The mayor has also decided to limit sales of alcoholic beverages.

Even regions once considered examples of successful efforts against the virus are now struggling.

Porto Alegre, home to about 14 lakh people, had success in slowing the virus’ spread over the last three months. But now its mayor is considering increasing social isolation measures after ICU occupancy in the city jumped to 80% this month.

We were already making projections for schools to come back, Mayor Nelson Marchezan Jr. told The Associated Press. Now the trend is to impose more restrictions. Outside Sao Paulo city, five regions of the state’s countryside will have to close shops starting Monday due to a rise in coronavirus cases. Governor João Doria announced the decision Friday.

Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s executive director, said at a news conference that Brazil needs to increase its efforts to stop the spread of infections.

“The epidemic is still quite severe in Brazil. I believe health workers are working extremely hard and under pressure to be able to deal with the number of cases that they see on a daily basis,” Dr. Ryan said.

“Certainly the rise is not as exponential as it was previously, so there are some signs that the situation is stabilising. But we’ve seen this before in other epidemics in other countries.”

Margareth Dalcolmo, a clinical researcher and professor of respiratory medicine at the state-funded Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, believes the reopening in major cities and the virus traveling by road into Brazil’s heartland will keep the pressure on the country’s health system.

“The risk in the interior now is very big,” she said. “Our health system just can’t solve the most serious cases of COVID in many places of the countryside.”

London, May 21: Working mothers in Europe and the United States are taking on most of the extra housework and childcare created by lockdown - and many are struggling to cope, a survey showed on Thursday.

Women with children now spend an average 65 hours a week on the unpaid chores - nearly a third more than fathers - according to the Boston Consulting Group, which questioned parents in five countries.

"Women have been doing too much household work for too long, and this crisis is pushing them to a point that's simply unsustainable," Rachel Thomas, of U.S.-based women's rights group LeanIn.Org, said in response to the data.

"We need a major culture shift in our homes and in our companies ... We should use this moment to build a better way to work and live – one that's fair for everybody."

Researchers say fallout from the pandemic weighs on women in a host of ways, be it in rising domestic violence or in lower wages, as some women cut paid work to take on the new duties.

With lockdowns shutting schools and keeping citizens at home, creating a mountain of domestic work, public campaigns from Georgia to Mexico have urged men to do their fair share.

But women, who on average already do more at home than men, are now shouldering most of the new coronavirus burden, too, said the survey of more than 3,000 working parents in the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany and France.

Women's unpaid hours at home have nearly doubled to 65 hours a week, said the survey, against 50 logged by an average father.

British women are more likely to support others in the COVID-19 pandemic and are finding it harder to stay positive, according to separate analysis released this week by polling firm Ipsos MORI and feminist organisation The Fawcett Society.

It is "no surprise" to see women do more childcare and housekeeping on top of their day jobs, Jacqui Hunt of women's rights group Equality Now, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

However, there are "hopeful signs" that men in West Africa are sharing more childcare during the pandemic in a shift in social norms, found a small rapid analysis by humanitarian organisation CARE International released on Wednesday.

Mexico City, Jun 13: The number of people, who have died of COVID-19 in Mexico, has risen by 544 to 16,448 within the past 24 hours, Jose Luis Alomia, the director of epidemiology at the Health Ministry, said.

He also said on late Friday that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases had increased by 5,222 to 139,196 within the same period of time.

A day earlier, the Latin American nation has recorded 4,790 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 587 fatalities.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 7.6 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 425,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.