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Fighting the virus has unintended consequences, including a crisis of mental illness.
The coronavirus is wreaking havoc on people’s health in a way that at first glance seems to have little connection to the devastating primary effects of the virus.
The United Nations warns of new risks for children and a subsequent plague of mental illness. And national governments are noticing the unintended consequences of blockades and other restrictions, including a increased domestic violence. In Mexico, the decision to ban the sale of alcohol was followed by dozens of deaths after people drank contaminated homemade alcohol.
Millions of children are at risk of dying, the United Nations said Wednesday, not from Covid-19, but from preventable causes. Unable to receive care in hospitals that are struggling to fight the virus, more than a million children ages 5 and under will die every six months, UNICEF said in a report.
And the World Health Organization, the health body that has been working to coordinate global efforts to combat the disease, warned Thursday of an impending crisis of mental illness, the result of “isolation, fear, uncertainty, the economic crisis”. caused by the pandemic.
Devora Kestel, director of the W.H.O.mental health department, who presented the report, said the world could expect to see an increase in the severity of mental illness, especially in children and health workers.
“The mental health and well-being of entire societies have been seriously affected by this crisis and are a priority that must be urgently addressed,” he said.
A government official in France said Thursday it would be unacceptable for French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi to grant the United States early access to any Covid-19 vaccine it develops, after comments from the company’s chief executive suggested that the United States would be first in line because he helped fund the research.
“For us, it would be unacceptable if another country had privileged access under a financial pretext,” Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the junior economy minister, he told Radio Sud.
Sanofi received $ 30 million from an office of the US Department of Health and Human Services. USA, Hudson said.
“I have been campaigning in Europe to say that the United States will receive the vaccines first,” he said. “It will be so, because they have invested to try to protect their population, to restart their economy.”
Sanofi later said in a statement that he was “committed in these unprecedented circumstances to making our vaccine accessible to everyone,” noting that it has manufacturing plants around the world.
The issue is tricky for French President Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly said that Europe needs to develop its “economic sovereignty” to become less dependent on the United States and China for strategic medical and technological goods.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said on Twitter that “equal access to the vaccine for all is not negotiable.”
About 1.2 million children in more than 100 countries are at risk of dying from preventable causes every six months because health services are stressed or restricted by the coronavirus pandemic, UNICEF said this week.
The figure adds to the 2.5 million children ages 5 and under who already die every six months in 118 low- and middle-income countries.
Put another way, the approximately 13,800 young children who die each day will join more than 6,000 others whose lives could have been saved.
UNICEF said the estimate was based on a study published in the Lancet Global Health Magazine by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“In the worst case, the global number of children dying before their fifth birthday could increase for the first time in decades,” Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s executive director, said in a statement.
The indirect effects of Covid-19 have also increased the threat to pregnant women in these countries. UNICEF said an additional 56,700 maternal deaths could occur within six months, in addition to the 144,000 deaths already taking place in the same countries in that time period.
According to calculations, the 10 countries that could have the highest number of additional child deaths are Bangladesh, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Russia hails its medical workers as heroes, its photos pasted on billboards, and its glamorous stories on state television. But as the country becomes one of the global hot spots of the pandemic, these workers experience staggering levels of infection and death in their ranks.
Thousands of people have been infected and more than 180 doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other medical workers have died.
Like their colleagues in much of the rest of the world, many of those doctors and nurses suffer from a shortage of protective equipment and gear. But Russian health workers are also at the mercy of an intricate and unrelenting bureaucracy that seems increasingly outmatched by the pandemic.
An internal federal government document obtained by The New York Times illuminated Russia’s lack of preparedness. In late March, Russian regional officials were sounding alarm bells over a drastic insufficient supply of protective equipment and widespread confusion about how they were supposed to fight the virus.
Those issues have yet to be fully resolved. Now, six weeks later, even doctors at Moscow’s best hospitals are reporting almost overwhelming levels of infection among their colleagues.
“I think as of today, I know a handful of people who have not been sick,” said Dr. Evgeny Zeltyn, a cardiologist at a Moscow hospital.
Dr. Zeltyn said he was lucky: He was at work when he collapsed with a 102-degree fever. He received immediate treatment, spent the night in his hospital as a patient, and returned to work in five days.
“People are fighting,” he said. “People are incredibly tired.”
The first cases of coronavirus were confirmed on Thursday in crowded refugee camps for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh, raising fears about how quickly the disease can spread through one of the world’s most overcrowded places. vulnerable communities
The United Nations refugee agency said the Bangladeshi government identified two people who tested positive at medical clinics in the Rohingya camps, where about 1 million refugees took refuge after fleeing. decades of persecution in neighboring Myanmar.
According to the United Nations refugee agency, one of the two who tested positive is a refugee, while the other is a member of the host population. A community leader in the camps said that up to 1,900 people who had contact with the couple have been identified and may undergo some form of quarantine.
Epidemiologists fear that the virus could spread like wildfire through such camps around the world, filled with millions of people fleeing war, persecution and famine. It has appeared in camps in Syria, South Sudan and the Aegean islands of Greece.
In Bangladesh, Rohingya tent camps spread across landslide-prone hills are already susceptible to disaster and disease. Diphtheria, almost eradicated in most of the world, has passed through them. Marauder elephants have trampled children to death. A fire recently destroyed hundreds of shelters.
A mobile internet ban imposed by the Bangladeshi authorities has made it difficult to spread accurate information. In Rohingya camps, there is not a single intensive care bed, and fewer than 100 refugees have been screened for the virus, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Bangladesh has reported fewer than 20,000 coronavirus cases, but health experts believe the actual number is much higher.
“This pandemic could delay Bangladesh for decades,” said Athena Rayburn, who manages the Save the Children’s group’s efforts to help the Rohingya.
Mumbai is the most densely populated city in India. A rugged peninsula framed by the Arabian Sea and other waterways. A city of huge dreams and desperate poverty. It is where the richest man in Asia, Mukesh Ambani, built a 27-story townhouse, and where “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed and filmed.
The Indians call it Maximum City.
And as the coronavirus gnaws at India, Mumbai has suffered the worst outbreak in the country. The city of 20 million is now responsible for 20 percent of India’s coronavirus infections and almost 25 percent of deaths. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Police officers are exhausted enforcing a curfew at home.
Doctors say the greatest enemy is the density of Mumbai, particularly in the city’s large slums, where social distancing is impossible. People often live eight to one room through miles and miles of informal settlements made of concrete blocks and covered with sheets of rusty iron. As temperatures rise to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, many cannot help but spill onto the streets.
But India’s tests are also relatively low, making many experts fear the actual number of infections is much higher. Many people still don’t have masks.
For the past eight weeks, Atul Loke, a second-generation newspaper photographer, has been following the spread of the coronavirus in Mumbai. His photographs, which can be seen at the following link, reveal a city under siege.
Even in the worst affected countries, small fractions of the population have so far contracted the coronavirus, new studies in England, Spain and France show, sobering evidence that the world is still far from defeating the contagion.
Public health officials warn that relaxing social distancing rules can cause new waves of the pandemic, in part because the vast majority of people may still be susceptible to infection.
Scientists say people who have had the virus are likely, though not certain, to get some immunity. The new findings support experts’ warnings that populations are still far from achieving “collective immunity,” when enough people are resistant to delaying their spread.
In England, tests on more than 10,000 people who were not in hospitals or nursing homes showed that only 0.27 percent was infected. The study, released Thursday. By Britain’s Bureau of National Statistics, it measured only active infections, not people who no longer had the virus on their systems.
A Spanish study, announced by the government on Wednesday, was different in that it tested the antibodies, not the virus itself, so it measured how many people had been infected at any time, including those who had recovered. He found that about 5 percent of the country’s population had contracted the coronavirus.
In all three countries, the vast majority of people tested for the virus had symptoms, and were primarily people in hospitals or nursing homes. The tests are imperfect: Infected people often give negative results, but in all three countries, significantly less than 1 percent of the population has tested positive.
Britain has had more than 33,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths, the second-most after the United States. France and Spain have had more than 27,000 each.
Tears flowed freely this month at a nursing home in Wassenaar, a coastal community in the Netherlands. And, a rarity in the midst of a pandemic, have been tears of joy.
After nursing homes across the country were closed to visitors in March, Willem Holleman, director of the nursing home, came up with the idea of Set up a cabin in the courtyard where residents and their families can meet without risk of infection. That, he said, “has made all the difference.”
The cabin, divided by a glass wall, has two entrances. For one, a nursing home resident enters with the help of a staff member. On the other hand, up to two family members can enter the cabin after disinfecting their hands. An intercom allows the family to communicate.
“The first visit to the cabin was very special,” said Holleman. “Two daughters came to see their mother for the first time after three weeks. The three sobbed.
More than half of coronavirus deaths in Europe have been in nursing homes, the data suggests that older people are especially vulnerable to the virus. Holleman said there were no cases of coronavirus at the Wassenaar home, where residents are between 75 and 101 years old.
Holleman said he was surprised at how the idea had taken off and spread across the Netherlands to other nursing homes. For now, the facility allows four half-hour visits per day. All slot machines have been reserved until the end of this month.
“Of course, we all prefer to hug and walk outside holding hands,” Holleman said. “This is the second best.”
The United Nations intended to celebrate its 75th birthday during the annual General Assembly in September. But the meeting, the world’s largest diplomatic meeting, can be held via video conference due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Diplomats have been saying privately that they don’t see how it would be possible to convene such a meeting if New York, the host city, is still dealing with basic health and safety issues, which seems likely.
Tens of world leaders and thousands of diplomats and other officials would normally descend on the city, with hotels, restaurants, and meeting venues reserved in advance for guests, receptions, side meetings, and related events.
Secretary General António Guterres, who ordered the 193-member organization’s headquarters to be largely vacated two months ago and asked employees to work from home, suggested he is looking for different options for this year’s General Assembly, including a drastic reduction. version augmented by internet video conferencing.
But aides to Mr. Guterres and current President of the General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande of Nigeria said they have not ruled out a physical meeting.
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for Mr. Guterres, said Thursday that Paris Match magazine, which had quoted Mr. Guterres as saying that a meeting of thousands of representatives was “unlikely”, had taken the comment out of context.
“He did not say it would not happen,” Dujarric said in a daily briefing, which like other UN events is now done via video conference.
Reem Abaza, a spokeswoman for Mr. Muhammad-Bande, speaking on the same video conference, also said that no decisions had been made. “It is still too early to know for sure what will happen in September,” he told reporters.
The General Assembly has been held every year since the organization’s founding in 1945. The meeting is scheduled to begin on September 15, and speeches by world leaders will begin on September 22.
Workers at France’s six French warehouses obtained some concessions from the company in late March: after hundreds of employees threatened to leave unless the company better protected them from the coronavirus, the internet giant strengthened social distancing measures. , provided masks and hand sanitizer and took employee temperatures
But that was not enough for workers like Jean-François Bérot, who a few weeks later felt that his colleagues were still too close to feel comfortable, risking orders for such trivial items as nail polish.
“People kept coming to work worried about being exposed to deadly danger,” said Bérot, 50, who works in a warehouse south of Paris.
The case, now directed at France’s Supreme Court, will test Amazon’s ability to evade demands from workers who are complying with a sudden surge in orders amid the pandemic.
While some residents have been supportive, others are concerned or angry that they are being asked to join long lines outdoors and are at risk of becoming infected. In spite of The blockade in Wuhan has been lifted, many residents have still chosen to stay home as much as possible.
And at least one lead expert said it was not necessary to evaluate all residents in Wuhan, given the low number of cases in the city.
The test drive, which will likely require the mobilization of thousands of medical and other workers, shows the ruling Communist Party’s determination to prevent a second wave of infections as it tries to restart China’s economy. The plan was announced this week after Wuhan reported six cases of coronavirus, snapping a streak of more than a month with no new confirmed infections.
The city’s goal of evaluating each resident is unrivaled in scale and in the speed at which Wuhan apparently plans to carry it out.
With the daily number of new cases of coronavirus falling in Japan after four weeks of a At a national state of emergency, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that he would lift the restrictions in 39 of the country’s 47 prefectures.
But the state of emergency, which gives local governors the power to close schools, encourage people to stay indoors, and request that companies temporarily close, will remain in place for the country’s eight most populous areas, including Tokyo and Osaka. Kyoto and the northernmost island, Hokkaido, will also remain under the emergency declaration.
Abe said he would review the state of emergency for the remaining prefectures next week to determine if he could get up before the end of the month.
He declared the emergency last month, until May 7, and then extended it until the end of this month.
Japan has reported a total of 16,079 infections and 687 deaths from the coronavirus. On Thursday, the health ministry reported 57 new cases for the nation and 19 deaths.
Abe urged residents not to let their guard down after the emergency declaration is lifted. He asked that people continue to wash their hands, respect social distancing guidelines and wear masks when going out. He also asked residents to avoid crowds in closed and poorly ventilated places and to refrain from visiting places such as discos, karaoke rooms and live music venues.
“We will have to create a new model in daily life from now on, and today is the beginning of that,” he said. He added that if infections start to increase significantly again, “unfortunately we may have to resort to a second state of emergency declaration.”
Warning about “the darkest winter of modern times,” a whistleblower, expelled as head of a federal agency working on a coronavirus vaccine, told Congress Thursday that the pandemic could “worsen and linger.”
“The window is closing to address this pandemic because we do not yet have a standard, centralized and coordinated plan to lead this nation through this response,” said Dr. Rick Bright. Home health subcommittee.
The country needs a national strategy for widespread testing and for the production and distribution of a vaccine on a scale beyond the capacity of any company, he said. He added that his superiors were indifferent to his warnings earlier this year of inadequate supplies.
Dr. Bright was removed last month as head of the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority, and moved to a narrower position at the National Institutes of Health. He had clashed with Trump administration officials over an antimalarial drug the President had promoted, despite the lack of evidence, as a Covid-19 treatment.
Trump said On twitter On Thursday, Dr. Bright “should no longer be working for our government,” and later described him as “nothing more than a truly unhappy and unhappy person.”
And Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, He temporarily stepped down as chairman of the Intelligence Committee on Thursday, amid an investigation into whether he traded nonpublic information by selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock before the market fell.
Burundi ousted four senior officials from the World Health Organization days before a crucial general election, amid criticism that the country has not done enough to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
The county Foreign Office declared four W.H.O. officials, including Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo, the main representative of the UN agency in the country, “persona non grata”. Authorities did not give a reason to expel the experts, but said they had to leave Burundi before Friday.
The Central African nation has come under intense criticism for its management of the coronavirus, with Human Rights Watch accusing him of taking a “denial and deviation approach”. From the beginning, the authorities cited divine intervention to explain the late arrival of the virus in the country, saying that “Burundi is an exception, because it is a country that has put God first.”
Burundi, who will go to the polls on Wednesday to choose a president, legislators and local officials, has reported only 27 cases and one death from Covid-19. Those numbers were suspiciously low by health experts, especially as cases increase in neighboring Tanzania, which has also been accused of failing to report the true number of the virus.
The United States Embassy in Tanzania He said in a statement on Wednesday that the risk of contracting the coronavirus in the commercial city of Dar es Salaam was “extremely high.”
“I took the opportunity,” he said in a telephone interview from Zurich. “Doing this online breaks many limits that seemed insurmountable.”
Afrolit Sans Frontieres, a series of one-hour readings and question-and-answer sessions conducted entirely in Facebook and Instagram started on March 23 and returned for a second edition in April. A third is slated to begin on May 25, to coincide with Africa Day, and a fourth is already underway. Facing the pandemic, with countless book fairs, tours, and other canceled or postponed literary events, Afrolit stands out as a gathering where hundreds of readers can listen to authors and talk to them about sometimes difficult or taboo subjects.
South African writer Zukiswa Wanner, who was inspired to create the festival after seeing the home of John Legend concert on Instagram, he is determined to use this moment to focus the work of African writers. “It’s like a writing masterclass and a festival in one,” Wanner, the award-winning author of nine books, said in a telephone interview from Nairobi.
The condition, called multi-system inflammatory syndrome, has been reported in approximately 100 children in New York State, including three who died, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said this week. Cases have been reported in other states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and California, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they would soon issue an alert asking doctors to report cases of children with symptoms of the syndrome.
The authors discovered that during the five years prior to the coronavirus pandemic, 19 children with Kawasaki disease were cared for at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, which has an advanced pediatrics department, in the province of the country of Bergamo.
But this year, just from February 18 to April 20, the hospital, which is at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy, treated 10 children with similar hyperinflammatory symptoms.
That suggests a group fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, the authors said, especially since overall hospital admissions during this time were much lower than usual.
Hannah Beech, Pam Belluck, Aurelien Breeden, Lauretta Charlton, Niraj Chokshi, Lynsey Chutel, Abdi Latif Dahir, Jeffrey Gettleman, Rick Gladstone, Russell Goldman, Jason Gutiérrez, Yonette Joseph, Raphael Minder, contributed reports and research. Moisés, Elian Peltier, Richard Pérez-Peña, Motoko Rich, Siobhan Roberts, Kirk Semple, Megan Specia, Anton Troianovski, Shalini Venugopa, Vivian Wang, Sui-Lee Wee, Ceylan Yeginsu, Wang Yiwei, and Karen Zraick.
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