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WASHINGTON DC .: The United States recorded its biggest job losses in history due to the coronavirus pandemic, as Europe, due to the increase in deaths, moved to keep its borders closed for another month.
Hopes have risen that the worst of the global catastrophe, which has killed more than 270,000 people, has passed, and the United States approved a new home saliva test Friday (Saturday in Manila) to accelerate diagnosis of the disease. by coronavirus. 2019 (Covid-19).
But after weeks when half of humanity was unable to continue their normal lives, the effects have been painfully visible, with the global economy suffering its worst recession in nearly a century.
In the USA In the US, 20.5 million jobs were cut in April, the most reported, with unemployment rising to 14.7 percent, the highest since the Great Depression.
The world’s largest economy has suffered the deadliest coronavirus outbreak with more than 77,000 deaths and nearly 1.3 million cases.
Aware of the November election, United States President Donald Trump has vowed to reopen the country, and a growing number of state governors have already allowed business to resume with caution.
Trump played down the unemployment figures, saying they were expected, as the White House pointed to substantial gains on global stock markets on Friday as proof that better times were coming.
“We are going to have a phenomenal year next year,” Trump told reporters. “I think it will come back hot.”
His optimism came even as the virus spread within the White House, and Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive.
Neighboring Canada also cut 3 million jobs, raising its unemployment rate to 13.1 percent, two days after the European Union forecast a massive recession in the bloc.
Still “fragile”
Two of America’s top companies, Google and Facebook, don’t take the risk and said they would let employees work remotely until the end of the year.
But several governments are moving to ease the restrictions.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, took decisive and early steps that halted the virus, and Chancellor Angela Merkel plans an almost complete return to normal within a month.
Italy, where deaths on Friday exceeded 30,000, plans to allow worshipers to return to mass, while Denmark said cinemas, museums and zoos would be closed on June 8.
In Britain, which has suffered the highest number of deaths in the world after the USA. In the US, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to offer a road map of the shutdown on Sunday.
But the European Commission recommended that the 27-nation bloc continue to ban non-essential visitor entry until June 15, a one-month extension.
“The situation remains fragile both in Europe and in the world,” he said in a statement.
Ylva Johansson, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, said the first priority would be to remove temporary border controls to restore free movement within the bloc, a key principle of the union.
The virus that has infected 3.9 million people worldwide eclipsed one of the most important dates on the European calendar: the anniversary of the end of World War II on the continent on May 8, 1945.
The parades and commemorations to commemorate 75 years since Nazi Germany’s surrender was canceled or curtailed, and the thoughts of many national leaders were in the fight against the new global challenge.
“For us Germans, ‘never again’ means ‘never again alone’,” said President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who placed a flower wreath in Berlin alongside Merkel, the two standing in line with the physical distancing guidelines.
“We want more, not less, cooperation in the world, also in the fight against the pandemic,” said Steinmeier.
Far from uniting the world, the crisis has triggered a war of words between China, where the virus first appeared in the Wuhan metropolis, and the United States. USA, where Trump has fought criticism for managing an epidemic, which he boasted of having under control in January.
The Trump administration has brought to the mainstream a theory that the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory, despite the World Health Organization (WHO) and the leading US epidemiologist. USA They said there is no evidence.
China rejects the charge, and America’s allies are not convinced.
According to the German news weekly Der Spiegel, citing a leaked internal note, the defense ministry and Germany’s spy agency view Trump’s claim as a “calculated attempt to distract” from the failings of his own administration.
There is no unity in the UN
The dispute escalated to the United Nations Security Council on Friday, where the United States, stunning other members, prevented a vote on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in various conflicts around the world.
The resolution, led by France and Tunisia, called for a cessation of hostilities in conflict zones and a 90-day “humanitarian pause” to allow governments to better tackle the pandemic among those who suffer most.
A State Department official told the France Presse agency that China had “repeatedly blocked commitments that would have allowed the Council to move forward.”
Diplomats said the United States was concerned about the language in the resolution on the role of the WHO, which has been at the forefront of the Covid-19 confrontation.
Trump has promised to freeze the more than $ 400 million in annual United States funding for the UN body, saying he did not act fast enough when the mysterious respiratory illness emerged in Wuhan and blindly accepted China’s word.
On Friday, the U.S. State Department also accused China and Russia of dramatically increasing online disinformation about the virus, including promoting conspiracy theories that was invented by American scientists.
Home saliva tests
With the death toll in the US USA And with infections still on the rise, regulators offered a way to speed up testing: a diagnostic kit that uses saliva.
The US Food and Drug Administration. USA He passed the home collection option, which is significantly easier than the more common test, which involves rubbing into the patient’s nose.
The new kit, developed by the Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory, is a rare test that doesn’t require a trip to a doctor or other test site.
Public health workers warn that a complete return to normal is impossible until the development of a vaccine, which could take months or even longer.
However, Trump again offered optimistic predictions by saying that a vaccine was not a prerequisite for ending the pandemic.
“At some point, it will probably go away on its own,” he told reporters, adding: “If we had a vaccine, it would be very helpful.”
