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Coronavirus Rips Into Regions Previously Spared

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Coronavirus Rips Into Regions Previously Spared

The wrong thing to say is to say nothing: Meghan speaks out over Floyd deathThe wrong thing to say is to say nothing: Meghan speaks out over Floyd deathUK coronavirus death toll passes 40,000 with a rise of 357A steam train on a track with smoke coming out of it: Workers disinfecting a street in downtown Cairo last week.

© Fadl AbuZaid/Picture Alliance, via Getty Images Workers disinfecting a street in downtown Cairo last week.CAIRO — For months, one enduring mystery of the coronavirus was why some of the world’s most populous countries, with rickety health systems and crowded slums, had managed to avoid the brunt of an outbreak that was burning through relatively affluent societies in Europe and the United States.

Now some of those countries are tumbling into the maw of the pandemic, and they are grappling with the likelihood that their troubles are only beginning.Globally, known cases of the virus are growing faster than ever with more than 100,000 new ones a day.

The surge is concentrated in densely populated, low- and middle-income countries across the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and South Asia.Not only has it filled hospitals and cemeteries there, it has frustrated the hopes of leaders who thought they were doing everything right, or who believed they might somehow escape the pandemic’s worst ravages.

A group of people standing on a boat: The Sadarghat ferry terminal in Dhaka, Bangladesh, last week. Cases surged in the country after a deadly cyclone tore through the country.© Rehman Asad/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Sadarghat ferry terminal in Dhaka, Bangladesh, last week. Cases surged in the country after a deadly cyclone tore through the country.

“We haven’t seen any evidence that certain populations will be spared,” said Natalie Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida. For those not yet affected, she said, “it’s a matter of when, not if.”Several of the newly hit countries are led by strongmen and populists now facing a foe that cannot be neutralized with arrests or swaggering speeches.

In Egypt, where the rate of new confirmed infections doubled last week, the pandemic has created friction between President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and doctors who have revolted over a lack of protective equipment and training.Workers cut the crop of watercress on June 05, 2020 in Waddock Cross, United Kingdom.

The Watercress Company in Dorset has overcome difficulties in obtaining seasonal workers as a result of the current pandemic. Seasonal employees from overseas have been unable to work with the company this year due to movement restrictions caused by coronavirus. 

The watercress grower has recruited a number of workers who had been furloughed or were self-employed. Tom Amery, managing director of The Watercress Company, said: “We realised quite early on in the lockdown that we were going to have issues with the harvest of watercress and our other salad crops if we didn’t quickly source the 25 staff members needed from other backgrounds.

“For most it’s a complete change from their normal lives, we haven’t had to train a fresh group of recruits for years, but I think we are learning a lot from each otherWith the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) causing significant global disruption in 2020, the U.K. responded by announcing strict country-wide measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.

After ordering pubs, bars, restaurants, theatres, gyms and leisure centres across the country to close indefinitely, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the public on March 23; outlining strict exercise and shopping limits, ordering all shops other than food stores and pharmacies to close, and implementing a ban on public gatherings of two or more people.

First Secretary of State Dominic Raab, while deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recovered from coronavirus (COVID-19), announced on April 16 that the U.K. lockdown would continue for at least another three weeks.

On May 10, the government then released preliminary guidelines on how the country is to exit the lockdown while setting out plans for a tentative easing on social restrictions in the coming months. With many businesses continuing to feel the effects of the pandemic, the state is also delivering an unprecedented economic relief package estimated to cost over £400 billion.Workers cut the crop of watercress in Waddock Cross, England on June 5.

The Watercress Company in Dorset has overcome difficulties in obtaining seasonal workers as a result of the current pandemic; seasonal employees from overseas have been unable to work with the company this year due to movement restrictions caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). In response, the watercress grower has recruited a number of workers from other backgrounds who had been furloughed or were self-employed. In Brazil, the total death toll surpassed 32,000 on Thursday, with 1,349 deaths in a single day, dealing a further blow to the populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has continued to minimize the threat.

“We are sorry for all the dead, but that’s everyone’s destiny,” he said Tuesday.In Bangladesh, natural disaster helped spread the disease. Cyclone Amphan, a deadly storm that tore through communities under lockdown there last month, helped drive cases up to 55,000.This week Bangladeshi authorities reported the first death from Covid-19 in a refugee camp, a 71-year-old Rohingya man from Myanmar — an ominous sign for wider worries about the plight of vulnerable people huddled in hundreds of such camps in the world’s most fragile countries.

The upswing marks a new stage in the trajectory of the virus, away from Western countries that have settled into a grinding battle against an increasingly familiar adversary, toward corners of the globe where many hoped that hot weather, youthful populations or some unknown epidemiological factor might shield them from a scourge that has infected 6.5 million people and killed almost 400,000, over a quarter of them in the United States.Some countries now being overrun by the virus seemed to be doing the right thing.

In Peru, where President Martín Vizcarra ordered one of the first national lockdowns in South America, over 170,000 cases have been confirmed and 14,000 more deaths than average were recorded in May, suggesting there were many more virus fatalities than the official count of about 5,000.a person standing in front of a building:

Egypt has counted 30,000 coronavirus cases, but experts believe the actual number is much higher.© Mohamed Hossam/EPA, via Shutterstock Egypt has counted 30,000 coronavirus cases, but experts believe the actual number is much higher.

South Africa, Africa’s economic powerhouse, banned sales of tobacco and alcohol as part of a strict lockdown in March, yet now has 35,000 confirmed infections, the highest on the continent. Even so, President Cyril Ramaphosa eased the restrictions last week, citing economic concerns.

The pandemic’s new direction is bad news for the strongmen and populist leaders in some of those countries who, in its early stage, reaped political points by vaunting low infection rates as evidence of the virtues of iron-fisted rule.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whose delivery of a planeload of medical aid to the United States in March was seen as a cocky snub, is grappling with the world’s third-largest outbreak, with 440,000 cases that have enraged the public and depressed his approval ratings to their lowest in two decades.

For Mr. el-Sisi of Egypt, the outbreak has posed a rare challenge to his preferred narrative of absolute control.Although Egypt’s 30,000 cases are far fewer than those of several other Arab countries — Saudi Arabia has three times as many — it has by far the highest death toll in the region and its infection rate is soaring.A man and a woman sitting on a table:

Medical workers disinfecting surgical instruments at the 6th of October Central Hospital, in Giza, Egypt, which has been transformed into an isolation hospital for coronavirus patients.

© Menna Hossam/Picture Alliance via Getty Images Medical workers disinfecting surgical instruments at the 6th of October Central Hospital, in Giza, Egypt, which has been transformed into an isolation hospital for coronavirus patients.Last Sunday the government recorded 1,500 new cases, up from about 700 just three days earlier.

The next day the minister for higher education and scientific research warned that Egypt’s true number of cases could be over 117,000.Some hospitals are overflowing and doctors are up in arms over shortages of protective equipment that, they say, has resulted in the deaths of at least 30 doctors.

Outrage crystallized last week around the death of Dr. Walid Yehia, 32, who had been denied emergency treatment at the overwhelmed Monira general hospital where he worked.Fellow doctors at the hospital went on strike for a week to protest his death.

The main doctors union issued a statement accusing the government of “criminal misconduct” and warning that Egypt was veering toward “catastrophe” — strong words in a country where Mr. el-Sisi has jailed tens of thousands of opponents. 

Reference: The New York Times: Declan Walsh 05 june 20202

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