(Melbourne) Five million inhabitants of Melbourne, the 2 th city of Australia, found themselves again confined Thursday due to a resurgence of the coronavirus, which is still progressing on a planetary scale, with more than 12 millions of people affected since the start of the pandemic.
Posted on July 9 2020 at 6 a.m. 52 Updated to 10 h 18
Ryan SMITH with Selim SAHEB ETTABA in Paris and AFP offices around the world
France Media Agency
Although far from the heavy balance sheets of countries such as the United States and Brazil, Australia – which has about 9000 cases for 106 dead – records an increase in cases in Melbourne (south-east), with more d 'a hundred new infections daily.
Residents have been ordered to stay home for six weeks. They will only be able to go out for work, exercise, go to medical appointments or buy necessities. Such measures had only recently been lifted.
The state of Victoria, where Melbourne is located, closed all of its borders on Wednesday in order to preserve the rest of Australia, which so far has managed to control the epidemic of COVID – 19.
On the whole, residents seem to approve of these new measures. “Containment was necessary, otherwise the number of cases would not have decreased,” Vani Kumar told AFP.
In anticipation of the restructuring, supermarket shelves were robbed on Wednesday, forcing the country's main chain to re-establish limits on purchases.
Call to the unit
The World Health Organization (WHO) called on Thursday for unity against the virus, while the cap of 12 million cases had just been crossed, more than half of which were in the United States, the most affected country, and in America Latin, according to a count made by AFP.
Of these 12 million – one fraction of the actual number of contaminations, due to differences in accounting methods and means from one country to another – almost 6.3, or more than half, are nevertheless considered to be cured of COVID – 19, which did near 550 000 deaths recorded worldwide.
“We cannot beat the pandemic if we are divided,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, two days after the United States officially confirmed its withdrawal from the organization.
WHO has also announced the creation of an independent panel of experts to assess its management of this health crisis.
In Europe, the situation seems to be under control, even if the continent remains the hardest hit by the virus with more 200 000 dead, more than two-thirds of them in the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Spain.
In Serbia, new clashes erupted in Belgrade during a rally of protesters furious of measures taken by the authorities to combat a resurgence of COVID – 18. Ten police were injured in the clashes on Wednesday evening, according to Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic.
In France, the mayor of Paris has announced that the city will have its traditional fireworks fired from the Eiffel Tower for the national holiday of 14 July, but without audience. This one will however be present Thursday for the first concert since mid-March of the Philharmonie de Paris, which is sold out.
As for Finland, it has announced that it will reopen its borders to tourists from 17 European countries considered to have a low infection rate, a list not including France or Luxembourg for the moment.
The reopening of the external borders of the countries of the European Union is done in a “chaotic” way, which “clearly undermines the restart of the air sector, two major organizations representing the airlines and the airports complained on Thursday.
In the United States, on the other hand, where the disease caused more than 132 000 dead for more of 3 million cases, the virus is still gaining ground.
After the epidemic has stabilized in its first homes, especially in New York, the country is facing an increase in infections in the South and West. Several states have thus been forced to suspend their deconfinement process.
President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday called on schools to reopen, denies the reality of this rebound: “the mortality rate from coronavirus (a) has been divided by ten! “, He tweeted.
The number of cases also soared in Tulsa (Oklahoma, center), just over two weeks after a campaign meeting organized by Donald Trump in this city, according to local health authorities.
“We went up, we never went back down to the basic level, and here we are going back up,” worried Anthony Fauci, the US government's top infectious disease expert.
In this tense context, the WHO has warned against the probable ability of the virus to be transmitted by air, especially in public places, that is to say in a much more contagious way than initially considered.
” Perfectly well ”
The epidemic continues to ravage Latin America and the Caribbean, where more than three million cases have been identified, more than half of them in Brazil.
Second most affected country, Brazil has 67 964 dead for 1 713 160 case, but Jair Bolsonaro, its elderly president of 65 years, even contaminated, continues to trumpet that he is “perfectly fine”.
Peru has exceeded the bar of 11 000 dead, a week after initiating gradual deconfinement, and Mexico recorded a new daily record of 6995 cases on Wednesday. And official figures jump in Venezuela: more than 1500 sick on June 1 and , more than 7000 a month later.
Africa remains far behind, both in terms of declared contamination and death, but the continent crossed the bar on Wednesday 500 000 case, after having passed July 1 er on 10 000 dead.
In sports, in Asia, where the virus started at the end of the year 2019, the Ligue des Football champions will resume in September on neutral ground and face to face single matches after the group stage, the Asian Confederation announced Thursday.