Philippines COVID-19 tally exceeds 100,000 with fourth consecutive record breaking rise

Washington, Jun 9: When epidemiologists talked about "flattening the curve," they probably didn't mean it this way: the US hit its peak coronavirus caseload in April, but since that time the graph has been on a seemingly unending plateau.

That's unlike several other hard-hit countries which have successfully pushed down their numbers of new cases, including Spain and Italy, which now have bell-shaped curves.

Experts say the prolonged nature of the US epidemic is the result of the cumulative impact of regional outbreaks, as the virus that started out primarily on the coasts and in major cities moves inward.

Layered on top of that are the effects of lifting lockdowns in parts of the country that are experiencing rising cases, as well as a lapse in compliance with social distancing guidelines because of economic hardship, and in some cases a belief that the threat is overstated.

"The US is a large country both in geography and population, and the virus is at very different stages in different parts of the country," Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told AFP.

The US saw more than 35,000 new cases for several days in April. While that figure has declined, it has still been exceeding 20,000 regularly in recent days.

By contrast, Italy was regularly hitting more than 5,000 cases per day in March but is currently experiencing figures in the low hundreds.

"We did not act quickly and robustly enough to stop the virus spreading initially, and data indicate that it travelled from initial hotspots along major transport routes into other urban and rural areas," added Frieden, now CEO of the non-profit Resolve to Save Lives.

To wit: the East Coast states of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts accounted for about 50 percent of all cases until about a month or so ago -- but now the geographic footprint of the US epidemic has shifted to the Midwest and southeast, including Florida.

Another key problem, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, is that the United States is still not doing enough testing, contact tracing and isolation.

After coming late to the testing party -- for reasons ranging from technical issues to regulatory hurdles -- the US has now conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country.

It even has one of the highest per capita rates per country of 62 per 1,000 people, according to the website ourworldindata.org -- better than Germany (52 per 1,000) and South Korea (20 per 1,000).

But according to Nuzzo, these numbers are misleading, because "the amount of testing that a country should do should be scaled to the size of its epidemic.

"The United States has the largest epidemic in the world so obviously we need to do a lot more testing than any other country."

For Johns Hopkins, the more important metric is the positivity rate -- that is, out of all tests conducted, how many came back positive for COVID-19.

As of June 7, the United States had an average daily positivity rate of 14 percent, well above the World Health Organization guideline of 5 percent over two weeks before social distancing guidelines should be relaxed.

By contrast, Germany, which has tested far fewer people in relation to its population, has a positivity rate of 5 percent.

Even if testing were scaled up, carrying out tests in of itself does very little good without the next steps -- finding out who was exposed and then asking them to isolate.

Here also, too many US states are lagging woefully behind.

Texas, which is experiencing a surge in cases after relaxing its lockdown, is a case in point. The state targeted hiring a modest 4,000 tracers by June, but according to local reports is still more than a thousand shy of even that goal.

Opt-in app based efforts have also been slow to get off the ground.

Then there is the fact that some people are growing tired of lockdowns, while others don't have the economic luxury of being able to stay home for prolonged periods.

The government sent some 160 million Americans a single stimulus check of up to $1,200 back in April but it's not clear whether more will be forthcoming.

Still others, particularly in so-called red states under Republican leadership, have chafed under restrictions and mask-wearing guidelines that they see as an affront to their personal freedom.

"The US is kind of on the extreme of the individual liberty side," Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told AFP.

Part of this has to do with mixed messaging from Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, said Nuzzo.

"We have had at the highest political level an assertion that this is a situation that's been overblown, and that maybe certain protective behaviors are not necessary," she said.

More recently, tens of thousands of people across the country have taken to the streets to protest the killing on an unarmed black man by police, risking coronavirus infection to demonstrate against the public health threat of racialized state violence.

Washington DC, Jul 7: With US President Donald Trump promoting re-opening the economy, the country has now four epicentres of coronavirus instead of one -- Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. This has led to the governors fearing that their hospitals could be overrun with patients.

"We are right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak...The difference now is that we really had one epicentre of spread when New York was going through its hardship. Now, we really have four major epicentres of spread -- Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. Florida looks to be in the worst shape," Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner was quoted by The Washington Post as saying in an interview.

As per the latest data, Florida, New York and California have crossed the 200,000 mark of coronavirus cases.

After Texas continued to break its own record of registering the highest number of coronavirus cases, Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) was quoted as saying in an interview, "If we do not change this trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun."

He further said that intensive care units in the city will start overflowing within 10 days.

Echoing similar sentiments, Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, said, "As long as we're doing as little as possible and hoping for the best, we are always going to be chasing this thing. We are always going to be behind and the virus will always outrun us...And so what we need right now is to do what works, which is a stay-home order."

She was stripped of authority to issue stay-at-home orders after Governor Greg Abbott decided to move forward with the reopening plan.

"It is clear that the (coronavirus) growth is exponential at this point...We have been breaking record after record after record... the last couple of weeks," Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was quoted as saying in an interview.

"The city of Miami was the last city in the entire state of Florida to open. I was criticized for waiting so long. But there is no doubt that the fact that when we reopened, people started socialising as if... the virus didn't exist."

He further said that if the numbers do not begin to fall "more drastic measures" will be taken in the coming week.

As per the latest update by the Johns Hopkins University, a total of 2,938,625 people in the US have tested coronavirus positive and 130,306 deaths have been reported so far.

Davos, Jan 24: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan claimed that he met with a “brick wall” when he approached Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a peace proposal, soon after assuming office.

In an interview to Foreign Policy magazine on the sidelines of WEF 2020 here, Khan also said he told Modi that Pakistan will act firmly if it was given evidence of any involvement in the Pulwama terror attack, but India instead “bombed” Pakistan.

Tensions have escalated between the two countries, following India withdrawing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. Even since, Khan has been trying to seek global intervention to de-escalate the tensions between the two countries.

On Thursday, India's External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar categorically ruled out any third party role on the Kashmir issue, asserting that any issue between the two countries should be resolved bilaterally.

In the interview, Khan said that he is a firm believer that military means are not a solution to ending conflicts. “After assuming office, I immediately reached out to Prime Minister Modi. I was amazed by the reaction I got, which was quite weird.

The subcontinent hosts the greatest number of poor people in the world, and the best way to fight poverty is to have a trading relationship between the two countries rather than spending money on arms. This is what I said to the Indian Prime Minister. But I was met by brick wall,” Khan said.

Khan took charge as Prime Minister in August 2018. Referring to the suicide attack in Pulwama, Khan said he immediately told Modi ,“if you can give us any actionable intelligence (that Pakistanis were involved), we will act on it. But rather than do so, they bombed us.”

Noting that the both countries are not close to conflict right now, Khan said that it is important that the UN and the US act.

When asked about US President Donald Trump’s close relationship with Modi, Khan said the relationship is understandable because India is a huge market. “My concern is not about the US-India relationship. My concern is the direction in which India is going,” Khan said.

Khan also sought to compare the events in India to what happened in Nazi Germany.

“Between 1930 and 1934, Germany went from a liberal democracy to a fascist, totalitarian, racist state. If you look at what is happening in India under the BJP in the last five years, look where it's heading, you'll see the danger. And you're talking about a huge country of 1.3 billion people that is nuclear-armed,” he said.