The focus of the pandemic moved to America, with unpredictable consequences

This week, America became the most serious infectious focus of the coronavirus pandemic, surpassing Europe, which for two long months was the epicenter of this crisis and now is dragging its consequences, which are unpredictable in a less prepared continent.

The latest global and regional case count from the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that cases in the Americas have reached 1.74 million, following the acceleration of infections in recent weeks, and have surpassed 1.73 million in Europe, where transmission of the new coronavirus has clearly slowed down. 

"America is definitely ahead of the game in the pandemic in terms of the number of cases and there are many deaths occurring," said one of the WHO spokespersons, Margaret Harris.

On the reasons for this negative evolution and what was done wrong, Harris said that "these are questions that arise again and again and there will be no clear answers as long as we do not have time to analyse what was done right". 

America is currently experiencing what several Western European countries, particularly Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, experienced in the second half of March and April, with an exponential increase in contagion. 

The latest WHO report on the global situation reveals that the latest daily increase in cases in the Americas reached 47,000, while throughout Europe - including Russia, which is experiencing a very strong outbreak of coronavirus - there were 23,000 infected. 

The gap between the two continents is even more marked in terms of mortality, with a daily increase in deaths in America that is three times that of Europe. 

New information is emerging daily that makes it difficult to establish exactly when the virus left China, although the first official case outside China was detected in South Korea in mid-January and is believed to have been around the same time when it crossed the Atlantic. 

The first case of coronavirus in the United States was confirmed on Jan. 20, and more than a month later, on Feb. 26, the first case was reported in Brazil. Both are the continent's most affected countries, and the greatest coincidence between them is that their presidents personally minimised the severity of the coronavirus and avoided taking severe measures until the pathogen was already widespread in their territories. 

"Many countries did not have the experience of what an infectious disease could mean for society, that it could paralyse (economic) activities and kill so many people," Harris said. 

In reviewing what has happened in recent months, the WHO has also concluded that the warnings it issued at the beginning of the crisis were not heard as they should have been. ​​​​​​​

"People focused on the information that 80% of the people were recovering well and did not need hospitalisation," the spokesperson said. At that time there was no awareness that the remaining 20% - which represented the severe and critical cases - "is a huge amount and that, if they were not treated, a good part of them would die". "It seems that this information was not taken up as it should in many countries and in some cases it was because they did not have a real memory or experience of such an event," Harris added. 

The pandemic became a reality in the Americas in early April, by which time all countries and territories in the Americas had at least one confirmed case. 

Now the epicenter is in the United States, where 80,000 deaths from COVID-19 have occurred out of 101,000 recorded in the Americas since January.

In this statistic, Europe registers 156,000 lives lost to this disease, for which there is still no cure or vaccine, although hundreds of investigations and experiments in numerous countries are trying to find them.

In addition to the United States, the pandemic has spread to South America, where the main focus is Peru (more than 65,000 cases), despite the fact that the government took preventive measures there very soon and the country has been in quarantine for 58 days. 

Mexico, which has more than 33,000 cases, is also concerned about the high lethality of the virus, estimated at 10%.