The head of the World Health Organization said the coronavirus pandemic is “accelerating” and that more than 150,000 cases were reported yesterday – the highest single-day number so far.
In a media briefing on Friday (June 19), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly half of the newly reported cases were from the Americas, with significant numbers from South Asia and the Middle East, reports AP.
“We are in a new and dangerous phase,” he said, warning that restrictive measures are still needed to stop the pandemic. “Many people are understandably fed up with being at home (and) countries are understandably eager to open up their societies.”
But Tedros warned that the virus is still “spreading fast” and that measures like social distancing, mask-wearing and hand-washing are still critical.
He noted the toll would be especially great on refugees in particular, of whom more than 80 percent live in most developing nations.
“We have a shared duty to everything we can to prevent, detect and respond to the transmission of Covid-19 detected among refugees in hospitals,” he added.
Global deaths from the novel coronavirus infection reached 453,268 as of Friday morning, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
So far, 8,463,533 cases have been confirmed around the world after Covid-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus, was first reported in China in December last year.
In Bangladesh, a total of 1,388 people died from the virus while the number of confirmed cases rose to 105,535 till Friday, according to Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Bangladesh tested as many as 582,548 samples and counted a total of 42,945 recoveries from coronavirus to date.
