WHO presents disturbing report as COVID-19 cases surge

The World Health Organization (WHO), presented a disturbing report as it announced an increase in the global coronavirus cases for the second day in a row, with the total rising by 259,848 in 24 hours.

The biggest increases reported on Saturday were from the United States, Brazil, India and South Africa, according to a daily report.

The previous WHO daily record for new cases was 237,743 on Friday. Deaths rose by 7,360, the biggest single-day increase since May 10. Deaths have been averaging 4,800 a day in July, up slightly from an average of 4,600 a day in June.

According to Reuters, the coronavirus disease hit another milestone in the spread of the disease that has killed almost 600,000 people in 7 months, as the total global cases of the virus have gone past 14 million.

The number of reported new cases for the top 4 countries as reported by WHO are 71,484 new cases for the United States, 45,403 for Brazil, 34,884 for India and 13,373 for South Africa.

India on Friday became the third country globally to record over 1 million cases of the new coronavirus, only behind the likes of the United States and Brazil. Experts have also suggested that it could get worse for India as the country is still likely months away from hitting its peak.

Brazil has seen its number of reported cases cross the 2 million mark as of Thursday, doubling in less than a month and adding an average of nearly 40,000 new cases a day. Disjointed responses from state and city have been quite poor in Brazil in the absence of a tightly coordinated policy from the federal government.

The United States, which leads the world with over 3.7 million cases, has also tried to contain the outbreak at the state and local levels with only limited success.

It can be recalled that the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had warned of a resurgence of the coronavirus disease globally particularly from countries that have eased lockdown and restrictions. He said that these countries are not following proven methods to reduce the risks of contracting the virus.