Indians wearing face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus walk at a market in Jammu, India, Monday, Aug 10, 2020. – CopyrightAP Photo/Channi Anand
The confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the world has reached 20 million. That’s according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Health officials believe the actual number is much higher, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40 per cent of all those who are infected have no symptoms.
The United States, India and Brazil have together accounted for nearly two-thirds of all cases since the world hit 15 million on July 22.
A senior doctor at the World Health Organisation said COVID-19 is not showing signs of seasonal patterns, and that lifting restrictions is what will cause it to “bounce back”.
Speaking from Geneva on Monday, Dr Michael Ryan, the Executive Director of WHO Health Emergencies Program, said “so far, what it has clearly demonstrated is you take the pressure off the virus, the virus bounces back.”
Ryan also praised Brazil’s health care workers for coping with what he described as “very high level of epidemic”.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, claimed he treated his own COVID-19 infection with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine back in July.
The WHO announced in June that the hydroxychloroquine arm of the Solidarity Trial to find an effective COVID-19 treatment had been terminated.
Ryan reiterated, “From all of the randomised control trials that have been published, the hydroxychloroquine is not proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19.”
