Coronavirus Pandemic: Latest Update (May 30, 2020)

This week, the United States, which has the highest number of Covid-19 cases worldwide, surpassed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths - and with the pandemic worsening in 17 states.

At the same time, governors around the nation, starting with Georgia, have been relaxing lockdowns which have been in place for several weeks. But many Americans are ignoring CDC guidance and emerging from their homes without face masks. Sadly it has got to the point where wearing a mask to protect yourself and others during the outbreak is now a political and cultural flashpoint. In other words, the practice is being politicized - with masks being associated with being anti-Trump or pro-Democrat - and worse - as a sign of weakness.

In my opinion, this is a worst case scenario that sets back the public health effort.

From my own experience working on the frontlines of public health outbreaks in several developing countries, including Nigeria and Pakistan, the most impactful public health messaging usually comes from two sources: the top (political and faith leaders such as a president or cardinal, chief rabbi or sultan) - or influencers such as celebrities.

*Frontline healthcare workers in the United States*

Sadly the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, not only refuses to wear a mask but also mocks those who do - such as his opponent, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden.

Biden hit back at the president’s tweet seeming to make fun of him: “Presidents lead by example, and wearing a mask helps protect others," Biden spokesman TJ Ducklo said in a statement to the Washington Post. "Donald Trump should try it, because his failure to act early on producing [personal protective equipment], on ramping up testing, and implementing a coherent national response to this crisis has cost thousands of Americans their lives."

In media interviews over the recently-concluded Memorial Day weekend in the United States, several holiday-makers said they did not wear a mask because the president chooses not to.

That is why it was heartening to see New York Governor Andrew Cuomo today teaming up with two celebrities - Chris Rock and Rosie Perez - to encourage New Yorkers to get tested and wear masks.

“I don’t care who you voted for, I don’t care who you are going to vote for. All I care is we get out of this pandemic as quickly as possible, and as safely as possible”

— Rosie Perez

And with Trump attacking China as the source of the virus, and threatening to leave the World Health Organization for their alleged slow response to Covid-19, as I wrote in my recent CNN Opinion piece: “The latest threat to end US involvement in the WHO appears to be an attempt to divert attention from his own incompetent response to the Covid-19 outbreak.”

Covid-19 and George Floyd Protests

As has been widely reported, protests have broken out across the nation in response to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis policemen.

With four straight nights of protests, some of them extremely violent, there are legitimate fears that a consequence will be the re-emergence of several new outbreaks of Covid-19. Protesters and police are in close proximity to each other and many are not wearing masks.

Should the outbreaks occur - and I hope they do not, there’s already been enough pain and grief and loss - contact tracing will be almost impossible to conduct. So it came as little surprise that Gov. Cuomo had this to say Saturday morning: “Demonstrate with a mask on. You don’t have a right to infect other people. You don’t have a right to jeopardize public health.”

*There were several scuffles between protesters and Secret Service officers outside the White House Friday*

Meanwhile Elsewhere

Meanwhile, the caseloads in Brazil and Russia continue to rise - with Brazil overtaking Russia and the country with the most cases after the United States. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Brazil currently has over 465,000 cases and Russia more than 396,000. Curiously, the death rate remains extremely low in Russia at just 4,555 - compared to 27,878 for Brazil and 38,458 for the United Kingdom.

*A women wearing a face mask near the Kremlin in Moscow*

The low Russian Covid-19 death count has been attributed to intentional under-reporting and to officials deliberately mis-categorizing the cause of death as pneumonia. Among the dead in Russia have been dozens of doctors and frontline healthcare workers.

In Brazil, the right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been mocking Covid-19 and, like his US counterpart, refuses to wear a mask, maintain social distancing and enforce lockdowns. And in a remarkable similarity to Donald Trump, he tends to deflect all responsibility for the crisis, casting blame on mayors, governors, an outgoing health minister and the media. Read more about the situation in Brazil here.

*South African President Cyril Ramaphosa not only wears a mask, but uses it to broadcast public health messaging*

The eyes of public health experts are also focused on Africa, which despite having densely-populated urban areas and weakened health systems, has largely managed to escape huge outbreaks. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Africa is the least affected region globally. It has about 17 percent of the world’s population - but just 1.5 percent of reported cases and less than 0.1 percent of deaths.

For example, the east African country of Ethiopia, the continent’s second most populous with 110-million people, has recorded just 731 cases of Covid-19 and six Covid-related deaths. As the Financial Times aptly pointed out, the United Kingdom, with a little more than half of Ethiopia’s population, has 6,000 times more Covid-related deaths

With less than optimal testing capacity, there is a likelihood some cases have been missed but as WHO’s director general said this week: “Even so Africa seems to have been spared the scale of outbreaks we have seen in other regions.'‘

Strict lockdowns in countries such as South Africa and Kenya, as well as existing public health infrastructure from previous outbreaks (such as Ebola, yellow fever, measles and polio), have also been attributed as reasons for the relatively low caseload on the continent.

There should also be concern for a spike in cases as air links have been maintained with China throughout the outbreak, and many Chinese workers are employed on vast infrastructure projects supported by Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

Covid-19: A Deadly Killer

According to new data compiled by The Economist, Covid-19 is killing more people than other, traditional causes: such as pneumonia and bronchitis, diabetes and road accidents.

Says The Economist: “Even if it were to end tomorrow, Covid-19 would still be among the leading causes of death in 2020 so far. At more than 235,000 deaths lost (now +367,000)..the disease currently ranks above breast cancer, malaria and Parkinson’s disease.”

Is the Impact of Lockdowns Worse Than the Virus?

There are legitimate concerns about the amount of debt being taken on by countries as they launch stimulus packages to reboot their economies.. Hard-hit countries such as Italy have debt-to-GDP ratio as 160 percent - more than double that of many other EU member countries.

Both Trump and Bolsonaro argue that shutting down the economy to control COVID-19 will ultimately cause more suffering than allowing the disease to run its course - Trump has even go so far to suggest that keeping people under stay-at-home-orders will cause a spike in suicides and mental health cases.

So at the moment we are in a wait-and-see mode. Will newly reopened economies provoke a second wave of cases? We should certainly hope and pray for that not to happen as most analysts predict a second lockdown will be much more painful than the first, especially from an economic point of view.

*Italian commuters on the move after enduring one of the world’s strictest and longest lockdowns.*