(TibetanReview.net, Jun09’20) – New daily coronavirus cases worldwide hit a record high on Jun 7 and the pandemic appeared to be worsening globally, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) Jun 8. More than 100,000 new cases, out of the total of more than 7 million, had been reported on nine of the previous 10 days, with the Jun 7 tally being 136,000 cases.
“Although the situation in Europe is improving, globally it is worsening,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva. He said that almost 75 percent of the cases on Jun 7 had come from 10 countries – mostly in the Americas and South Asia.
Also on Jun 8, a WHO scientist stirred confusion by saying that asymptomatic transmission was not a significant factor in the spread of the virus, as many public health experts had assumed for months.
“It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward,” Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19, said. She wanted governments to focus more attention on controlling the spread among people with symptoms.
While the WHO did not dismiss the idea of asymptomatic spread entirely, there are other public health experts who are not willing to buy its argument.
There’s significant transmission by people not showing symptoms,” Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, had previously told Business Insider.
Also, Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said on Twitter, “Some modeling studies suggest 40-60% of spread is from people when they didn’t have symptoms.”
The WHO’s suggestion, if true, would be a relief to governments as it would enable them to narrow their focus and resources on symptomatic cases.
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Whatever may be the case, India continues to be one of the worst hit countries currently, with its daily cases keeping on hitting new records.
India’s Ministry of Health reported yet another record of 9,987 new cases and 331 new deaths during the past 24 hours as of Jun 9 at 8AM (GMT+5:30), taking their totals to 266,598 cases and 7,466 deaths.
The six worst hit states with more than 10,000 cases were led by Maharashtra with a total of 88,528 cases after 2553 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu with 33,229 (↑1562) cases, Delhi with 29,943 (↑2289) cases, Gujarat with 20,545 (↑475) cases, Uttar Pradesh 10,947 (↑411), and Rajasthan 10,763 (↑164).
Below them were 15 states/Union Territories with more than 1,000 cases, namely Madhya Pradesh 9,638 (↑237), West Bengal 8,613 (↑426), Karnataka 5,760 (↑308), Bihar 5,202 (↑114), Haryana 4,854 (↑406), Andhra Pradesh 4,851 (↑143), Jammu & Kashmir 4,285 (↑198), Telangana 3,650 (↑70), Odisha 2,994 (↑138), Assam 2,776 (↑211),Punjab 2,663 (↑55), Kerala 2,005 (↑91), Uttarakhand 1,411 (↑56), Jharkhand 1,256 (↑157), and Chattisgarh 1,160 (↑87).
And then there were eight other states/ Union Territories with more than 100 cases, namely Tripura 838 (↑38), Himachal Pradesh 421 (↑8), Goa 330 (↑30), Chandigarh 317 (↑3), Manipur 272 (↑100), Puducherry 127 (↑28), Nagaland 123 (↑5), and Ladakh 103 (↑0).
Six states/Union Territories with less than 100 cases included Arunachal Pradesh 51 (↑0), Mizoram 42 (↑8), Meghalaya 36 (↑0), Andaman and Nicobar Islands 33 (↑0), Dadra Nagar Haveli 22 (↑2), and Sikkim 7 (↑0).
Lakshadweep remains the only State/Union Territory without any Covid-19 case.
Maharashtra also had the most number of deaths at 3,169 (↑109), followed by Gujarat 1,280 (↑31), Delhi 874 (↑113), West Bengal 415 (↑9), Madhya Pradesh 414 (↑2), Tamil Nadu 286 (↑17), Uttar Pradesh 283 (↑8), Rajasthan 246 (↑6), Telangana 137 (↑14), Andhra Pradesh 75 (↑0), Karnataka 64 (↑3), Punjab 53 (↑2), Jammu & Kashmir 45 (↑4), Haryana 39 (↑11), Bihar 31 ↑1), Kerala 16 (↑1), Uttarakhand 13 (↑0), Odisha 9 (↑0), Jharkhand 7 (↑0), Himachal Pradesh 5 (↑0), Chandigarh 5 (↑0), Assam 4 (↑0), Chattisgarh 4 (↑0), Ladakh 1 ((↑0) and Meghalaya 1 (↑0).
Ten States/Union Territory with Covid-29 cases have reported no deaths so far.
(Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)
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Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said Jun 9 that the source of Covid-19 infection was unknown in nearly 50 per cent cases in the national capital, adding that it was up to the Centre to declare whether the city had entered the phase of community transmission.
On the same day, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that by Jul 31, the city was expected to see 550,000 cases and might need 80,000 hospital beds while also citing expected figures by Jun 15 (44,000 cases), Jun 30 (100,000 cases), and Jul 15 (225,000 cases), also.
Sisodia also cited officials from Centre say no community transmission of Covid-19 was seen in the capital.
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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases surged past the 7.1 million mark to reach 7,136,366 while a total of 406,913 had died as of Jun 09 at 3:03:06 PM (GMT-4), according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
There were record 118,847 new cases and 4,019 new deaths during the preceding 22 hours or so across 188 countries and regions.
The countries with the most number of reported Covid-19 cases thus far were US (1,961,185), Brazil (707,412), Russia (484,630), UK (288,834), India (267,249), Spain (241,717), Italy (235,278), Peru (199,696), France (191,313), Germany (186,233), Iran (173,832), and Turkey (171,121).
The countries with the most number of Covid-19 deaths were US (111,007), UK (40,680), Brazil (37,134), Italy (33,964), France (29,212), Spain (27,136), Mexico (14,053), Belgium (9,619), Germany (8,727), Iran (8,351), Canada (7,910), and India (7,478).
(Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)
