SANTIAGO, June 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Surging fatalities in Latin America helped push the global coronavirus death toll above 400,000 on Sunday, even as Europe emerged from its virus lockdown with infections increasingly under control there.
Pope Francis, addressing Catholics in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday for the first time since the health emergency began, said the worst was over in Italy and expressed sympathy for those in hard-hit Latin American countries.
“Your presence in the square is a sign that in Italy the acute phase of the epidemic is over,” Francis said as the Vatican confirmed it had no more cases of COVID-19 among its employees or within Vatican City.
“Unfortunately in other countries — I am thinking of some of them — the virus continues to claim many victims.”
Brazil has the world’s third-highest toll — more than 36,000 dead — but President Jair Bolsonaro has criticized stay-at-home measures imposed by local officials and has threatened to leave the World Health Organization.
Tolls are also rising sharply in Mexico, Peru and Ecuador, while in Chile, total deaths have now reached 2,290.
Chile on Sunday reported 653 deaths from COVID-19, bringing its overall toll to 2,290, authorities said.
Chilean health minister Jaime Manalich said that some miscounting pointed out by the World Health Organization in March and April was corrected, pushing the toll up from 1,541 on Saturday.
Ninety-six marked a record-high number of deaths reported in a single day, according to Manalich.
Chilean health authorities will also start counting the deaths of people who show symptoms in line with the virus, even if the victim did not undergo a COVID-19 test.
“We are making a methodological change in the way we count people who have died and whose death presumably could be linked to a COVID-19 infection,” the minister said.
Meanwhile, a record number of new infections in the last 24 hours, of 6,405, was also reported in Chile, totaling 134,150 infected since the pandemic began in the South American country on March 3.
The virus’ spread has come despite a three-week lockdown in the crowded capital, Santiago.
But in communist Cuba, President Miguel Diaz-Canel declared the pandemic “under control” after the island nation registered an eighth straight day without a death from COVID-19, leaving the toll at 83.
The number of infections has reached almost seven million worldwide since COVID-19 emerged in China late last year, forcing much of the globe into lockdown and pushing the world economy towards its worst downturn since the Great Depression.
However, fears of a second wave of the deadly disease have given way to grave worries over the economy, encouraging European countries to reopen borders and businesses, and those throughout Asia and Africa to slowly return to normal life.
As of 1900 GMT, a total of 400,581 deaths were recorded worldwide — a number that has doubled in the past month and a half.
While almost half of the deaths have been recorded in Europe, the United States remains the hardest-hit nation with more than 110,000 deaths, followed by Britain, whose toll exceeds 40,500. — NNN-AGENCIES
