Trump threatens to withdraw funds from WHO as coronavirus advances unstoppable in America

A warning that the expansion of COVID-19 is “rapidly accelerating”, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), coincided on Tuesday with the threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to freeze the funds that his government provides to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations agency that is working on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus.

“In just seven days, we have seen the number of cases and deaths in our region double. The pandemic is accelerating rapidly, I urge governments to prepare and respond with the same speed,” PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne said Tuesday, noting that as of Monday there were 384,435 cases and 11,270 deaths across the continent.

An increase that goes from Chile, which surpassed 5,000 infections (5,116 after 301 new cases and 43 deaths in total), to Cuba, which reached 11 deaths and 396 positives after a record 46 new infections.

And all of this is happening in the United States, the country most severely hit by the coronavirus with at least 387,547 cases, more than double the number of those next on the list, Spain (140,618), and with New York City becoming the main hotspot.

So much so that, according to local authorities, the 3,202 deaths recorded as of Tuesday have already surpassed the number of people killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks in the Big Apple, when 2,753 people died in the Twin Towers.

To this number, we must add the 731 deaths today (out of a total of 5,489) which represent the highest number of deaths from coronavirus in New York State. Despite this, Governor Andrew Cuomo was relatively optimistic after saying that “stabilisation is being achieved” in new hospitalisations, as well as in admissions to intensive care units and incubations.

On Tuesday, the US president announced that he is considering freezing the funds his government provides to the WHO, accusing it of being “biased” in favor of China, of having “failed” to warn of the coronavirus before, and of criticising some of the measures his government adopted at the beginning of the pandemic, such as the travel ban.

Against this complex backdrop, countries continue to adjust measures for dealing with a pandemic that has already left more than 1.4 million people infected and 81,200 dead worldwide, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

Especially after places like Brazil, which with 13,717 infections and 667 deaths is the Latin American nation most affected by the coronavirus, several specialists say the disease will “potentially” circulate in the country until September, with a peak between April and May.

In response, the South American country is trying to acquire new health equipment, studying how to increase the national production of masks and respirators, and seeking to accelerate research with drugs like chloroquine. Sao Paulo will be installing its third field hospital to treat infected patients in the Ibirapuera Park sports complex, the city's most visited.

And in Guayaquil, which has the highest concentration of cases and deaths from coronavirus in Ecuador and which since last week has experienced an emergency due to lack of space to transport the city's corpses, Mayor Cynthia Viteri announced that she will build two new cemeteries to bury the victims of COVID-19.

These measures are more radical in cases such as Bolivia, where the authorities decided that starting Thursday at 00:00 local time (04:00 GMT), they will “encapsulate Montero”, a city considered one of the largest hotspots of the disease in the country and where its more than 110,000 inhabitants will have “zero mobility”.

Decisions that, although they seek to protect the lives of the region's inhabitants, cause numerous inconveniences, such as the tension experienced this Tuesday, amid shouts and struggles, between Bolivians who ask to cross from Chile and the military who control the entrance, near a quarantine camp designed to shelter the people who arrive for 14 days.

Added to this are the political divisions in the country, for which the interim government accuses the followers of Evo Morales of taking advantage of the situation in order to seek a social and political confrontation, something denied by the supporters of the former president, who condemn the fact that Jeanine Áñez's interim administration criminalises those who protest against the way the quarantine is being applied.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Americas are faced with the choice of protecting their health or going out to seek means of daily subsistence. “I can't let the pelados (children) or the wife die of hunger, I have to go out to camellar (work),” Alarson Ramos Peña, a fruit and vegetable street vendor from Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, told Efe on Tuesday.

However, quarantines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus are the most widespread and effective measures, which is why Peru (2,954 sick and 107 dead, 15 more than the previous day) will decide before Holy Thursday whether or not to extend the compulsory confinement, in force since March 14.

“The coronavirus crisis is going to wreak havoc on the economy of Latin America, which is facing a new lost decade and cannot count on the support of the United States because it has no sense of community,” Alicia Bárcena, secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told Efe.

A concern that is shared not only at the macro level, as shown by the 87% of Mexican businessmen who, according to a study published today, see it likely that there will be layoffs in their companies in the coming weeks and months.

And in Paraguay, the pandemic has led to the dismissal of some 20,000 workers, five percent of the workforce in the official sector, in four weeks of health isolation, although a one-time subsidy is planned for the duration of the quarantine, the Social Security Institute (IPS) announced on Tuesday.

Faced with this situation, more than 20 former heads of state and government from Latin America demanded a “global response to the coronavirus” by the G-20 in order to provide “emergency financial support to emerging and developing nations” in the amount of 8 billion dollars.

However, life goes on, as demonstrated in the state of Wisconsin in the United States, where masked election officials and voters keeping their distance attended the primary elections on Tuesday after Justice invalidated Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' decree postponing the elections. And although in the background, this is how the electoral contest goes on in which the two candidates for the Democratic presidential candidacy for the November elections, former Vice President Joe Biden, the favourite in his party's primary Tuesday, and leftist Senator Bernie Sanders, are fighting.