GLOBAL CORONAVIRUS CASES SWEEP PAST 12 MILLION-MARK
US officials say Trump’s Tulsa rally sparked fresh Covid-19 spike
PARIS: More than 12 million coronavirus infections have now been recorded across the world, over half of it in the United States and Latin America, according to an AFP tally of official data on Thursday.
At least 12,063,425 cases and 549,451 deaths have been recorded, with the number of infections doubling since May 31. About half of those who caught the virus have recovered.
With at least 3,055,100 infections and over 132,300 deaths, the US continues to be the worst-affected country, with Brazil second having registered 1,713,160 cases and 67,964 deaths.
In the US, health authorities from Oklahoma said President Donald Trump’s rally and other mass events in Tulsa last month “more than likely” contributed to a local surge in cases.
Tulsa county has seen record daily new Covid-19 cases this week, including 266 on Wednesday, after having witnessed a decline over the previous two weeks. Pressed on whether this explosion in new infections was due to Trump’s June 20 meeting, Tulsa health department director Bruce Dart said it was “more than likely” that “significant events in the past few weeks” contributed.
Trump, meanwhile, threatened to hold back federal money if school districts don’t bring their students back in the fall.
In Africa, the pandemic is reaching “full speed” and it’s time to prepare for the worst-case scenario, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief said, after a South African official said a single province is preparing 1.5 million gravesites.
Just a day after cases across Africa surpassed the half-million mark, the total was over 522,000, with more than 12,000 deaths.
South Africa has the most confirmed cases with over 224,000.
In Spain, authorities in the Balearic Islands plan to make the wearing of masks mandatory outdoors from this weekend.
In Australia, Victoria state recorded 165 new cases in the past 24 hours, as an outbreak at a Melbourne high school became the state’s largest cluster.