UNITED NATIONS – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said there is still no end in sight to the spread of COVID19 as he called for solidarity to fight the virus after deaths from the disease surpassed 1 million worldwide.
“Our world has reached an agonizing milestone: the loss of 1 million lives from the COVID19 pandemic,” said Guterres in a video message.
(Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Xinhua / MANILA BULLETIN)
“It's a mind-numbing figure. Yet, we must never lose sight of each and every individual life (lost). They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues,” he said.
“The pain has been multiplied by the savageness of this disease. Risks of infection kept families from bedsides. And the process of mourning and celebrating a life was often made impossible,” he added.
“How do you say goodbye without holding a hand, or extending a gentle kiss, a warm embrace, a final whispered 'I love you?’” Guterres said there is still no end in sight to the spread of the virus, the loss of jobs, the disruption of education, the upheaval to people's lives.
“We can overcome this challenge. But we must learn from the mistakes. Responsible leadership matters. Science matters. Cooperation matters. And misinformation kills,” he said.
“As the relentless hunt for a vaccine continues – a vaccine that must be available and affordable to all – let's do our part to save lives: keeping physical distance, wearing a mask, washing hands,” the UN secretary general said.
“As we remember so many lives lost, let us never forget that our future rests on solidarity – as people united and as United Nations,” he added.
US ‘not in a good place’
The United States is “not in a good place” as new COVID-19 cases are growing, Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on Monday.
“There are states that are starting to show an uptick in cases and even some increase in hospitalizations in some states,” Fauci said on ABC's “Good Morning America.”
“And I hope not, but we very might well start seeing increases in deaths.”
Meanwhile, some 120 million rapid tests for COVID-19 will be made available to poorer countries at $5 each, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday – if it can find the money.
The WHO said the $600 million scheme would enable low- and middle-income countries to close the dramatic gap in testing for the new coronavirus, which has now killed more than a million people since first being recorded in China in December.
The quick tests, to be distributed across 133 countries over the next six months, are not as reliable as the regular PCR nasal swab tests but are far faster, cheaper and easier to carry out.
“We have an agreement, we have seed funding and now we need the full amount of funds to buy these tests,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference. (With a report from AFP)