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The global death toll from coronavirus approached 200,000 on Saturday when the United Nations launched an international push for a vaccine to defeat the pandemic.
Governments around the world are fighting to limit the economic devastation unleashed by the virus, which has infected nearly 2.8 million people and left half of humanity under some form of blockade.
The scale of the pandemic has forced medical research on the virus to move at unprecedented speed, but effective treatments are still a long way off, and the head of the United Nations said the effort will require cooperation on a global scale.
“We are facing a global public enemy like no other,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Friday in a virtual briefing, calling for international organizations, world leaders and the private sector to unite.
“A Covid-19 free world requires the most massive public health effort in history.”
The vaccine should be safe, affordable and available to everyone, Guterres stressed at the meeting, which was also attended by leaders from Germany and France.
But notably absent from the meeting were the leaders of China, where the virus first emerged late last year, and the United States, which accused the UN World Health Organization of failing to warn quickly enough about the original outbreak.
The UN chief’s call for a vaccine came a day after United States President Donald Trump sparked protests and mockery with his suggestion that disinfectants be used to treat patients with coronavirus.
“Is there any way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost by cleaning?” Trump reflected during a televised briefing. “Sounds interesting to me.”
As experts, and disinfectant manufacturers, rushed to warn against any dangerous experiments, the president tried to reject his comments, saying he had been speaking “sarcastically.”
The United States is the country most affected by the pandemic, with 51,017 deaths and more than 890,000 infections.
The world’s largest economy has been hit by the pandemic, with 26 million jobs lost since the crisis began, and US leaders are under pressure to find ways to ease measures of social distancing.
Despite Trump’s criticism, the Georgia governor allowed some companies, including nail salons and bowling alleys, to reopen on Friday, prompting criticism and relief.
The mayor of the state capital, Atlanta, condemned the measure “irresponsible” and told ABC News: “There is nothing essential in going to a bowling alley or giving a manicure in the midst of a pandemic.”
But some in the city appreciated the opportunity to re-engage with society.
“I really had a great time,” said Tili Banks, 41, as she and a friend walked out of a bowling alley.
“I was so happy to be out that I didn’t even realize I had these people’s bowling shoes when I came out.”
Global Covid-19 deaths have topped 195,000, according to an AFP count, but new reported cases appear to have stabilized at around 80,000 per day.
The number of daily deaths in western countries appears to be declining, a sign that hopeful epidemiologists have been looking for, but the WHO warned that other nations are still in the early stages of the fight.
The unprecedented situation has left the world looking at its worst recession since the Great Depression, and put great pressure on world leaders to balance public health concerns and economic needs.
Some countries, including parts of Europe, have begun easing the restrictions, with Belgium becoming the last to announce a easing on Friday.
Meanwhile, pressure was mounting on the government of the coronavirus survivor and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to explain how Britain will get out of the blockade stage and restart the economy.
On the other side of the world, in Australia and New Zealand, where radical measures of social estrangement are applied, people held vigils from the isolation of their own ways to pay tribute to their war veterans on Anzac Day.
The official memorials were held behind closed doors.
“(Generally) we go to our various watering holes, pubs or clubs, and we enjoy our colleagues … you talk about the old days, while serving and talk about someone who was lost this year who was there last year,” he said Ray James, an Australian veteran of the Vietnam War.
“It will be sad this year because we will not be able to do that.”
Across the Muslim world, hundreds of millions of worshipers opened the holy month of Ramadan in a position to stay home, facing unprecedented bans on prayers in mosques and in large traditional gatherings of families and friends to break the daily fast.
In the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the Grand Mosque, usually crowded with tens of thousands of people during Ramadan, was abandoned when religious authorities suspended the Umrah pilgrimage year-round.
“We are used to seeing the holy mosque crowded with people during the day, night, all the time … I feel pain inside,” said Ali Mulla, the muezzin who calls for prayer in the Grand Mosque.
Despite the threat of the coronavirus, clerics and conservatives in some countries, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, have rejected meetings in mosques.
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