Global report: Fauci warns of 'needless death' as WHO urges vigilance in lifting lockdowns

The World Health Organization has called on countries to show “extreme vigilance” when loosening Covid-19 restrictions as the top US infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, warned that prematurely reopening the American economy would cause “needless suffering and death”.

The WHO’s emergencies chief, Michael Ryan, has hailed the gradual lifting of coronavirus lockdowns in some countries whose death and infection rates were dropping, as a sign of “hope”, but he cautioned that “extreme vigilance is required”.

He urged countries to boost their public health responses, ensuring they could identify fresh cases, and trace and isolate all contacts, which he said could help “avoid a major second wave”.

He also warned that while “many countries have made very systematic investments in building up their public health capacities during the lockdowns, others have not.”

“If disease persists in countries at a low level without the capacity to investigate clusters, identify clusters, there is always the risk that the disease will take off again,” he said.

His statement came amid concern over new spikes of infection in South Korea and China.

Ryan’s message was echoed late on Monday by Anthony Fauci, a key member of the US coronavirus taskforce team. Fauci told the New York Times he intended to tell the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee on Tuesday that Americans would experience “needless suffering and death” if the country opened prematurely.

“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to: ‘Open America Again’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country. This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal,” Fauci said in an email.

Fauci had been a regular at that podium at White House briefings before Trump reduced his prime-time appearances in favour of set-piece ones.

On Monday in the US, which has the most cases of any country in the world, White House staff were directed to wear face masks.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said several regions (not New York City) could start reopening their economies this weekend after meeting benchmarks demonstrating that they were “ready to go”. Factory workers began returning to automotive assembly lines in Michigan on Monday, stoking fears of a second wave of infections. The state has seen some of the most vocal protests against the lockdown, directed by the Democratic mayor, Gretchen Whitmer. In California, Elon Musk reopened his Tesla factory on Monday afternoon, in defiance of lockdown laws.

In South Korea, cited as a beacon of success in tackling the virus, 64 cases have now been connected to a cluster in Seoul’s nightclub district that was visited on 1-2 May by a man in his late 20s before he tested positive for the virus. Since mid April, the country had been adding fewer than 15 cases per day, including some days when there were no domestic infections.

China on Monday reported just one new case, and one suspected case. Concerns had been raised the day before when 17 newly diagnosed cases were announced, the highest number in nearly two weeks.

In Iran, lockdown measures were also easing. All mosques can temporarily reopen on Tuesday, the official IRIB news agency reported. Mohammad Qomi, the director of the Islamic Development Organisation, said they would be open for only three days, commemorating specific nights for the holy month of Ramadan. The semi-official news agency Fars said it was unclear whether they would stay open. Mosques opened for Friday prayers last week in 180 cities that were seen as low risk.

Brazil’s populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, on Monday declared gyms and hair salons to be essential services that could stay open, despite 5,632 new cases and 396 new deaths being reported.

“The question of life has to be taken in parallel with jobs,” Bolsonaro said outside his official residence, in comments reminiscent of Trump. “Without the economy there is no life, there are no doctors, there are no hospital supplies.”

Bolsonaro has been strongly criticised for his approach to the pandemic.

In total, Brazil has reported more than 169,000 cases, just behind Germany (172,576) and France (177,547). So far 11,625 deaths have been reported, making Brazil the sixth worst affected country, behind the US (80,397), UK (32,141), Italy (30,379), Spain (26,744) and France (26,646).

In other coronavirus developments:

• Saudi-backed authorities in Yemen declared Aden an “infested” city as the number of cases there rose. At the same time, Riyadh announced that its major oil producer, Aramco, would cut oil output by another million barrels per day, or nearly 12% of the country’s output, from June.

• The death toll from the novel coronavirus among medical personnel in Mexico has reached 111, and the virus has infected between 8,500 and 15,000 hospital workers.

• Japan’s Health Ministry is set to approve antigen coronavirus testing kits on Wednesday, a ministry official said on Tuesday, in a move to boost the number of diagnostic tests available to battle the pandemic.

• New Zealand recorded no new cases on Tuesday. The country will move to Level 2 lockdown on Thursday.

• Australia’s treasury has forecasted GDP will fall by over 10% in the June quarter, which would represent the country’s biggest fall on record.

• Global cases of coronavirus total 4,175,284, with deaths worldwide at 285,971, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker.