The real-time statistics website Worldometer showed that the cumulative number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide exceeded 100 million, and the epidemic reached a terrible milestone. It took nine and a half months for the world to break through the top 50 million, but the last 50 million took only two and a half months.
United Nations humanitarian affairs director Locock said on the 25th that the number of cases counted may be only the tip of the iceberg. Many low-income countries are in a dangerous second wave of epidemics, and the situation is aggravated by the more infectious Variants virus.
At present, Variants viruses widely spread in the UK have appeared in at least 60 countries and regions. While dozens of countries are running vaccination campaigns to race against the virus, most low-income countries are facing the problem of unfair distribution of vaccines.” The most vulnerable countries are at risk of putting us all at the end of a long and slow queue of vaccines.” Lockcock issued a warning about “vaccine nationalism”.
As the number of confirmed cases worldwide exceeds 100 million, some analysts review the multidimensional impact of the epidemic on the world, from economic and employment setbacks to severe challenges to governance and social instability in various countries.
Facing the reality that more than 2 million people have lost their lives in the epidemic and the world has suffered various huge losses, some foreign media asked: Can these have been avoided? Can people remember this lesson after defeating COVID-19?
The number of cases in 19 countries is more than 1 million.
According to the statistics of the Worldometer website on the 26th, there are a total of 10,0422931 confirmed cases worldwide. By country, the United States ranks first with more than 25.86 million cases, and the second place is India, which has a cumulative cumulative 10.67 million confirmed cases, which account for about 25% and 10% of global cases, respectively.
Another 17 countries have more than 1 million cases. The Financial Times said on the 26th that since the cumulative number of cases worldwide exceeded 50 million in November, every 10 million cases has increased in about 15 days.
According to the Financial Times, the cumulative number of cases in China that first reported the epidemic has been declining, and now it has reached 80th.
According to the data released by the National Health Commission of China, from 00:00 to 24:00 on January 25, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 82 new confirmed cases, including 69 local cases and 1 new death, which is a local case.
According to the Worldometer website, there are more than 2.15 million deaths worldwide, of which the United States has reached 420,000, accounting for 20% of the world.
Another 11 countries have more than 50,000 deaths. Lotcock warned that many cases may not be included in the statistics. India Today recently reported a chilling news: More than half of the 28,000 samples collected by New Delhi investigators from January 10 to 23 tested positive for serum antibodies, which means that these people have been infected with the novel coronavirus.
The United States is the country with the worst epidemic, with 154,000 new cases and 1,792 new deaths on the 25th. The Wall Street Journal said that such data has decreased compared with the previous period – the average daily number of cases in the United States has decreased by 30% in the past week.
On the 24th, the number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in the country was 110,000, the lowest level since mid-December last year.
However, January is still the “deadliest” month of the epidemic in the United States. CNN said that at least 73,000 people died of the novel coronavirus this month, which is equivalent to one death every 30 seconds. In terms of the number of confirmed cases, two Americans are infected every second this month.
The Financial Times said that the number of deaths in the United States has exceeded the number of World War II deaths in the country, which is higher than the combined number of deaths in World War I, the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the September 11th terrorist attacks.
The region with the largest number of cases in the world is Europe. According to Worldometer’s website, the cumulative number of confirmed cases on the mainland approached 30 million on the 26th.
On the 25th, 138,000 new cases were reported in Europe, including 38,000 in Spain and 22,000 in the United Kingdom. Portugal has the highest incidence in the world in the past week, with 826 new infections per 100,000 residents.
New strains found in the UK spread to more than 60 countries and regions
According to Bloomberg data on the 26th, 56 countries and regions around the world have been vaccinated with more than 68 million doses, with the highest vaccination rate in Israel – 42.9 doses per 100 people; the United States has completed 23.5 million doses.
Concerns are currently caused by the discovery of Variants COVID-19 in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, which are named B.1.1.7, 501Y.V2 and P.1 respectively.
501Y.V2 has appeared in more than 20 countries, while P.1 has spread to the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Peru and other countries.
According to the Financial Times, B.1.1.7 has been found in at least 60 countries and regions, an increase of 10 countries over a week ago. According to the German newspaper Bild on the 26th, at least 22 patients have been infected with medical staff since the Humboldt Hospital in Berlin found the first case of B.1.1.7 on the 14th of this month.
Belgian scholars estimate that one quarter of the country’s recent new cases may be related to B.1.1.7. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on the 25th that after modeling, it was found that the Variants virus in the United Kingdom may become the main strain spread in the United States by March. The British government said on Friday that B.1.1.7 is not only infectious, but also likely to have a higher lethality rate.
According to the New York Times, Modena and Pfizer said on the 25th that the vaccine they developed is effective against Variants viruses found in the United Kingdom and South Africa, but the protection against the latter is slightly weaker.
Statements from both companies highlighted a consensus among scientists that COVID-19 is changing faster than previously anticipated and is likely to continue to evolve. As a precautionary measure, Modena said, it will begin testing whether vaccination boosts the immune response.
Regarding the Modena vaccine, the WHO Strategic Advisory Expert Group issued interim recommendations for the use on the 26th, saying that pregnant women, people with severe allergic reactions and other groups are not suitable for vaccination, and said that a decision will be made at the end of February whether to include the vaccine in the emergency use list.
Shao Yiming, chief AIDS expert of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times that inactivated vaccines and mRNA vaccines are the two fastest technical routes to respond to the escape Variants of the novel coronavirus, while technical routes such as viral vectors and protein vaccines take much longer.
If the vaccine is really upgraded, China’s inactivated vaccine is expected to complete the relevant work in about two months, and the whole process is not complicated.
Variant COVID-19 exacerbates the situation of epidemic prevention, and countries continue to introduce new measures. The United States has resumed restrictions on the entry of tourists from Brazil and most European countries on the 26th, and banned most non-American citizens who have recently traveled to South Africa from entering the United States.
(Up to the first edition) The United Kingdom is considering completely closing its borders, and France is also reportedly considering another national blockade; according to the website of the European Union Observer On the 25th, the European Union announced that a new “crimson” area has been added to the original risk classification, referring to countries and regions with “extremely high risk”.
Passengers from these places need to undergo nucleic acid testing and be quarantined at their destinations. Crimson” defines the criteria for having more than 500 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in the last 14 days, and as of Monday, 13 European countries met this criterion.
“I hope this will not happen again”
The impact of the epidemic on the world is multifaceted, first of all, the economy and employment.
The International Labour Organization affiliated with the United Nations said on the 25th that global working hours fell by 8.8% last year, four times as much as during the 2008 financial crisis.
A total of 140 million workers joined the unemployment army, and the huge loss of working hours caused global labor income to shrink by 8.3%, equivalent to 3.7 trillion US dollars, or about 4.4% of global GDP.
According to the International Labour Organization, 2020 suffered the worst job market crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The Financial Times said that governance in various countries also faces major challenges in the epidemic. For example, inadequate epidemic prevention constitutes an important reason for the failure of former U.S. President Trump’s re-election campaign. This also brings another problem – social unrest, dissatisfaction with the government, widening the gap between rich and poor, and people in many countries take to the streets.
In the words of UN Secretary-General Guterres, the coronavirus pandemic “has exacerbated long-standing injustice and division.” The Netherlands, which has recently fallen into riots, was the third day of demonstrations by local people against curfews on the 25th. At least 10 police officers were injured in clashes Monday, according to AFP, and Dutch police said 184 “thugs” had been arrested.
Bloomberg said that throughout history, the plague has triggered resistance, and the coronavirus pandemic is no exception, and social unrest is an “inevitable” legacy of the epidemic. In 1625, people took to the streets in London because of opposition to isolation and blockade.
Since last year, people have marched, protested or rioted, and sometimes even carried guns, from Trafalgar Square in London to the Michigan State Capitol. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the United States, there were large-scale anti-lockdown protests in at least 26 countries from March to October 2020.
Now, the vaccines have shown the world a way out to contain the epidemic, but the uneven distribution of coronavirus vaccines brings a new test. According to Reuters, at the World Economic Forum’s “Davos Agenda” Dialogue on the 26th, South African President Ramaphosa called on high-income countries to stop hoarding vaccines, and “some countries even get four times the number of vaccines of their own populations”.
The French-based International Chamber of Commerce said on the 25th that the study found that “vaccine nationalism” may cause economic losses of up to $9.2 trillion worldwide, about half of which will fall on developed economies, because if a country’s trading partners do not have access to vaccines, it will itself “go a slow recovery”. , which causes a drag on GDP”.
NPR said on the 25th that the COVID-19 epidemic has killed more than 2 million people and caused chaos in global economic and social governance, but these are not inevitable.
As former New Zealand Prime Minister Clarke said, this is “a direct result of people who have been in need of better preparation for many years, but ultimately not adequately prepared”.
Are we ready for the next pandemic?” Singapore’s Straits Times said on the 26th that previous pandemics would prompt many institutions to put forward a series of recommendations to strengthen preparedness and response, but most of them have not been put into action.
“Hopefully this doesn’t happen again, that is, once the pandemic is defeated, all the painful lessons are forgotten,”
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