‘We must not give up’

The World Health Organization chief has warned that abandoning efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic, as suggested by a top US official, was "dangerous", urging countries not to "give up". 

"We must not give up," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing.

The coronavirus has killed at least 1,160,768 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT yesterday.

At least 43,516,870 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 29,437,300 are now considered recovered.

On Monday, 5,273 new deaths and 428,884 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on the latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were India with 488, followed by the United States with 464 and Argentina with 405.

Tedros acknowledged that after months of battling the new coronavirus a certain level of "pandemic fatigue" had set in.

"It's tough and the fatigue is real," Tedros said. "But we cannot give up," he added, urging leaders to "balance the disruption to lives and livelihoods".

He voiced particular concern about the situation in Europe, which in the past week accounted for 46 percent of global cases, and nearly a third of global deaths.

His comment comes as the United States, Russia, France and many other countries are setting records for coronavirus infections as a tidal wave of cases washes over parts of the Northern Hemisphere, forcing some countries to impose new curbs.

In the United States, the number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients is at a two-month high, straining health care systems in some states.

US President Donald Trump, facing a tough re-election battle on Nov. 3, lashed out again at reports that the coronavirus is surging.

"Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all time high," Trump said in a Twitter post.

In Europe the picture was unrelentingly grim as a string of countries reported record increases, led by France, which posted more than 50,000 daily cases for the first time on Sunday, while the continent passed the threshold of 250,000 deaths.

France may even be experiencing 100,000 new infections a day, professor Jean-Franois Delfraissy, who heads a council that advises the government, told RTL radio.

Governments have been desperate to avoid the lockdowns which curbed the disease earlier in the year at the cost of shutting down their entire economies. But the steady rise in new cases has forced many in Europe to tighten curbs.

The Spanish government faced a backlash over its plans to put one of Europe's worst Covid-19 hot spots under a six-month state of emergency. Opposition parties said six months was too long, epidemiologists said this may be too little too late and some citizens balked at nightly curfews.

Russia's daily tally of new COVID-19 infections surged to a record high of 17,347 on Monday as the Kremlin warned the pandemic was beginning to take a greater toll outside Moscow.

International tourism down by 70pc: UN

Meanwhile, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) yesterday said international tourists arrivals plunged by an 70 percent during the first eight months of 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Northern Hemisphere's peak summer season was ravaged by travel restrictions, with tourist arrivals down by 81 percent in July, and by 79 percent in August, the Madrid-based UN body said in a statement.

There were 700 million fewer arrivals between January and August than during the same period a year earlier, leading to a loss in revenues of $730 billion -- more than eight times the drop recorded following the 2009 economic crisis, it added.

The Asia and Pacific region, which was hit first by the pandemic, saw the biggest decline in arrivals, on the order of 79 percent.

It was followed by Africa and the Middle East with a 69 percent drop, Europe with 68 percent fewer international visitors and the Americas where arrivals fell by 65 percent.