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SEOUL: South Korea, once one of the worst-affected countries in the coronavirus pandemic, reported no new cases on Thursday, raising hopes of an eventual return to normalcy as US scientists praised the results of a important drug trial.
Good medical news sent shares soaring, despite rising deaths worldwide and abysmal economic figures caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
The data showed that the pandemic, which has killed more than 224,000 people, has plunged the United States into its worst economic depression in a decade, and has left Germany waiting for its biggest recession since the aftermath of World War II.
But for the first time since the new disease was detected there in mid-February, South Korea reported zero new infections.
The East Asian nation had the world’s second-largest coronavirus outbreak during a period after the virus appeared in China late last year.
But with an aggressive test-and-trace strategy and widespread social distancing, it has managed to control the spread of the pathogen.
“This is South Korea’s fortress and its people,” President Moon Jae-in said in announcing the milestone.
Meanwhile, in the first trial of a successful treatment, a clinical trial of the drug remdesivir showed that patients recovered approximately 30% faster than those who received a placebo.
“The data shows that remdesivir has a clear, significant and positive effect on decreasing recovery time,” said Anthony Fauci, the leading American epidemiologist.
The death toll from the South Korean virus is around 250, much lower than that of Italy, Britain, Spain and France, which recorded more than 24,000 deaths, and the United States, leading the table with a third of global deaths.
Other parts of the region have had similar success in their fight against the virus.
Infections have declined in China after it imposed extremely strict blocking measures on millions of people earlier this year.
Its official toll is around 4,600, although the accuracy of the figures has been questioned.
Hong Kong, a city of seven million where there have been only four deaths from the virus, did not report new cases for the fifth consecutive day on Thursday.
And New Zealand has stated that the battle won against widespread and undetected community transmission.
However, economic costs are starting to rise, raising fears of an era-defining global collapse and increasing pressure worldwide to ease blockades despite fears of a second wave of contagion.
The United States announced that economic production collapsed 4.8% in the first quarter, ending more than a decade of expansion.
On Thursday, France and Spain said their economies fared even worse, contracting 5.8% and 5.2% respectively, while the Eurozone economy in general also contracted.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the worst was yet to come, and economic activity will likely fall “at an unprecedented rate” in the second quarter.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has managed to contain the devastating death tolls seen elsewhere, but is still preparing for an overwhelming economic blow.
Germany “will experience the worst recession in the history of the federal republic” founded in 1949, warned Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, and forecast that GDP would drop by a record 6.3%.
The International Labor Organization said that half the world’s workforce, about 1.6 billion people, is in “immediate danger of destroying their livelihoods.”
One of the hardest hit sectors is the aviation industry, but an unprecedented drop in demand for fossil fuels means that global energy emissions are expected to drop a record eight percent this year, the International Energy Agency said .
Experts have warned that only a vaccine will completely remove the restrictions that this year subject half of humanity to some form of blockade.
But there have been encouraging signs in the search for treatment.
Fauci compared remdesivir with the first retrovirals that worked, albeit with modest success, against HIV in the 1980s.
The drug failed Ebola virus trials, and a smaller study, published last week by the WHO, found limited effects among patients in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the disease.
Senior WHO official Michael Ryan declined to comment on the latest findings, saying he had not reviewed the full study.
“We all fervently hope that one or more of the treatments currently under observation and being tested will result in altering clinical outcomes” and reduce deaths, he said.
As the world continues to look for signs of progress against the pandemic, the investigation also reveals terrifying new details about COVID-19. Britain and France have warned of a possible coronavirus-related syndrome that is emerging in children, including abdominal pain and inflammation around the heart.
“I am taking this very seriously. We have absolutely no medical explanation at this time,” said French Health Minister Olivier Veran.
Experts have also warned of long-term psychological tolls in both children and adults after weeks or even months in isolation.
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