South Africa’s health minister warned that the current surge in cases in the country is expected to increase rapidly in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current increase in infections comes from people who “returned to the workplace.” Therefore, conglomerate outbreaks were inevitable as infections spread from communities to congregation sites such as mines, factories, taxis, and buses. ”
New clusters of cases in a Swiss nightclub and the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still widely circulating in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the US, America. Latin and India.
Meanwhile, Poland and France tried to move towards normalcy in the elections that had been postponed by the virus.
Wearing compulsory masks, social distancing in the ranks, and carrying their own pens to sign the voting records, French voters voted in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-affected areas were instructed to mail their ballots to avoid further spread.
“I did not go to vote the first time because I am older and I was scared,” said Fanny Barouh while voting at a Paris school.
In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events for upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona due to the growing cases of viruses in those states.
Pence praised Abbott both for his decision to reopen the state and to reverse plans to reopen.
“You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.
Pence urged people to wear masks when they cannot practice social distancing. He and Abbott were wearing face masks when they entered and left the room, removing them while talking to reporters.
Meanwhile, Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he does not have to follow his own administration’s lead because, as world leader Free, it has been evaluated regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us”.
Addressing the spikes in reported cases of coronavirus in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by distancing themselves socially and wearing masks if possible.
A count reported Sunday by Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had reached 500,108.
Approximately 1 in 4 of those deaths, more than 125,000, have been reported in the US The country with the highest number of deaths is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or approximately 1 in 9.
The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially in the beginning, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested.
To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported worldwide. About a quarter of them have been reported in the United States.
The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, surpassing 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The count dwarfs the previous record a week earlier by more than 183,000 cases, showing that case counts continue to progress worldwide.
Overall, the US still has the most distant cases. With more than 2,450,000, approximately double that of Brazil. The number of real cases worldwide is much higher.
New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “exactly on the opposite extreme,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”
The state reported five new deaths from the virus on Saturday, its lowest number of daily deaths reported since March 15. During the state’s maximum pandemic in April, almost 800 people died each day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.
In Washington state, Governor Jay Inslee has suspended plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to escalate. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that the camps will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.
Meanwhile, Britain’s government is considering whether a local blockade is necessary for the city of Leicester, in central England, amid reports of an increase in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local shutdown.
“We have seen outbreaks across the country in recent weeks,” Interior Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.
Polish voters cast ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to take place in May, but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist Law and Justice party, faces 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.
Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.
“It is bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are discouraged,” he said.
French voters elected mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Italy honored their dead later on Sunday with a Requiem night concert in the province of Bergamo. The ceremony at the former epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy had the lowest daily COVID-19 death toll in nearly four months – eight.
European leaders did not risk crushing new groups. German authorities renewed a blockade in a western region of approximately 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive. Swiss authorities ordered 300 people to be quarantined after an outbreak of “super lord” coronavirus at a Zurich nightclub.
Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
