In Africa, COVID-19 Cases Near 100k As Global Total Passes 5 Million: Live Updates

Summary:

• African CDC says cases pass 95k
• Russian deaths top 3k
• NYPost pressures de Blasio to reopen NYC
• MSM already blaming Trump for failing to stop ‘second wave’ of virus
• Nigerian doctors in Lagos end day-long “Doctor’s strike” over police harassment
• UK launches study into effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID prophylactic

* * *

The world reached a particularly powerful coronavirus milestone last night: The number of cases confirmed across the world topped the 5 million mark roughly 5 months after the first cases of the virus were confirmed in Wuhan back in December. 

We also noted that Brazil is on track to overtake Russia as the second-largest outbreak in the world (after the US, of course) as it continues to break records with its daily number of confirmed cases, as testing ramps up after months of minimal government intervention to stop the virus.

In a bold move that’s bound to elicit a flood of public anger from the ‘stay home, save lives’ crowd, the cover of Thursday’s NY Post pleads with Mayor de Blasio to reopen the city. At this point, the data around the country clearly suggests that deaths and the number of newly confirmed cases have continued to fall, even as the MSM continues to focus on a couple of examples of ‘misleading’ presentation of data during the earlier days of the reopening in Georgia and Florida.

The @nypost front page tomorrow calls for an end (now) to NYC’s lockdown pic.twitter.com/BPwOA9anSX

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) May 21, 2020

Amusingly, the MSM has already pivoted to criticizing the Trump Administration for things that haven’t even happened yet. To wit, the Guardian reports that 9 “Obama Administration scientists” have signed onto a warning that the Trump Administration has “just 3 months” to rebuild its stockpiles of PPE before the next wave of the outbreak, the Guardian reports. The outbreaks in Brazil and Russia – not to mention the ‘partial lockdown’ imposed on another 100+ million in northeastern China – aren’t exactly reassuring, but this phenomenon of “pre-blaming” Trump for failures that haven’t happened yet seems to be growing more common since the NYT slammed the White House over projections calling for 3k deaths a day by June 1.

In a handful of countries including India, doctors have reported experience surprising levels of harassment from fellow citizens and police as some blame them for failing to save relatives who have succumbed to the virus. As unbelievable as this might sound to Westerners, Al Jazeera reports that Nigeria’s largest medical union has ordered its members in Lagos to resume work, ending a strike inspired by allegations of police harassment. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) doctors’ union, which ordered Lagos members to stop work indefinitely from Wednesday evening, said it had received assurances that doctors would be exempt from a nationwide overnight curfew and would therefore be allowed to move freely.

Despite official figures showing fewer than 500 deaths, scientists in South Africa are projecting up to 50,000 coronavirus deaths and as many as three million infections by the end of the year as the southern hemisphere braces for a rising infection rate as winter begins. SA already has the highest number of infections and deaths on the continent, with more than 18,000 identified cases and 339 deaths, but a national lockdown entering its sixth week had slowed infections.

Across Africa, the number of cases is creeping closer to 100k, after passing the 90k mark on Thursday. The number of the infected has reached 95,201, per the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the latest data, the death toll on the continent was 2,997, while 38,075 people have recovered.

For the second day in a row, Indonesia has set a new record for new cases, bringing the total to 20,162 in the world’s fourth most populous country. Indonesia confirmed 973 new infections and 36 new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 1,278, according to health ministry official Achmad Yurianto.

After lifting his state of emergency order in the prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo on Thursday, Japanese PM Abe said he could lift the emergency status in Tokyo as soon as next week.

“The state of emergency will continue in Tokyo, Hokkaido and other regions. We will meet with experts (on Monday) to update the situation on infections,” Abe told reporters after ending the state of emergency in Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. “If the current situation continues, it is possible that the state of emergency could be lifted in those areas.”

As the US press slams President Trump for taking HQX for prophylactic purposes, UK healthcare workers will take part in a University of Oxford-led international trial of two anti-malarial drugs to see if they can indeed prevent COVID-19.

The ‘COPCOV’ study will involve more than 40,000 frontline healthcare workers from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America to determine if chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine truly are effective.

Finally, in Russia, officials said Thursday that the death toll topped 3,000 after another 127 deaths were reported, bringing the Russia-wide total to 3,099. Additionally, authorities reported 8,849 new cases of the virus, which brought Russia’s outbreak – the second-largest in the world behind the US – to 317,554.