WHO warns Latin American governments about risk of lifting COVID-19 lockdown

The World Health Organisation warns the Latin American governments about the risk of lifting lockdowns before slowing the spread of the deadly coronavirus throughout the region. After the warning from the UN agency, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro threatened to pull the country out of the WHO. While the daily COVID-19 fatalities pushed Brazil’s death count past that of Italy, Bolsonaro still continued to argue for quickly lifting state isolation orders and said that the economic costs outweigh public health risks. 

When asked about efforts to loosen social distancing orders in Brazil despite rising daily death rates and new cases, a WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said that a key criterion for lifting lockdowns was slowing transmission. While speaking to an international media outlet, Harris said that the epidemic, the outbreak in Latin America is ‘deeply, deeply concerning’. She said that among the six key criteria for easing quarantines, one of them is ideally having a ‘transmission declining’. 

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In response to Harris’ statement, the Brazilian President said that the country will consider leaving the WHO unless it ceases to be a ‘partisan political organisation’. While Bolsonaro threatened to pull the country out of the WHO, President Donald Trump, an ideological ally of the Brazilian President, also said that the US would end its relationship with the UN agency. Trump also accused the WHO of becoming a puppet of China, where the coronavirus first emerged. 

Meanwhile, even with soaring numbers of the infections, Bolsonaro has downplayed the pandemic. His dismissal of the coronavirus risks to public health and efforts to lift state quarantines have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum in Brazil. Some opposition leaders have reportedly also accused the Brazilian President of using the crisis to undermine the democratic institutions.

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Mexican Prez downplays pandemic 

On the other hand, Mexico, which has been reporting a record number of daily deaths, has also become a new focus of the deadly pandemic. However, Mexican President Anders Manuel Lopez Obrador also urged his countrymen not to over-react and reportedly noted that the deaths per capita for its nearly 130 million people were still far lower than in many other countries. According to Johns Hopkins University tally, Mexico’s death from the virus ranks it seventh among countries worldwide. 

With the growing number of confirmed cases, last month WHO also said that South America has become as ‘epicentre’ of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Johns Hopkins University tally, Brazil currently has more than 614,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and the deadly virus has even claimed nearly 34,021 lives in the country. Mexico, on the other hand, has over 110,000 confirmed cases with almost 13,170 deaths. 

(Image: AP)

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