WHO advises caution on easing curbs but authorities point to economic fallout

RIO DE JANEIRO-Brazil has registered another record number of novel coronavirus deaths as Latin America grapples with intense zones of COVID-19 transmission.

The region has logged 1 million cases and recorded more than 50,000 deaths, with Brazil accounting for more than half of those cases and close to 60 percent of the fatalities.

Brazil on Tuesday registered 28,936 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 1,262 deaths, taking the country's total to 555,383 with 31,199 deaths.

The fresh record comes as some Brazilian leaders continue to belittle the virus, warning that the economic fallout from quarantine measures will be worse than the virus itself.

Authorities have been rapidly loosening restrictions in recent days, despite the number of daily new cases continuing to grow in most regions and warnings from the World Health Organization and epidemiologists.

The regional office of the WHO warned Brazil on Tuesday against reopening "too quickly as there is a risk of a resurgence of COVID-19".

The health ministry said there was "no way to specify when the peak of deaths will occur" due to the country's size and geographic diversity.

Meanwhile, the WHO's regional director for the Americas, Carissa Etienne, on Tuesday urged the United States to keep helping countries in the region to fight the novel coronavirus even as the Trump administration leaves the UN agency.

Separately, US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro discussed a joint research effort on using the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as both a prophylaxis and treatment for the coronavirus, the White House said on Tuesday.

In the US, Trump said on Tuesday that the Republican Party was "forced" to choose another location for its presidential nominating convention as North Carolina rejected its demand for a full-fledged gathering amid the coronavirus pandemic, telling organizers that planning for a scaled-down event was "a necessity" due to the virus.

The US has had by far the most COVID-19 cases and deaths of any country in the world, with 1,831,435 official cases and 106,180 deaths.

'Priority' measures

In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido have reached an agreement to cooperate to raise funds for the fight against the coronavirus, they said on Tuesday.

With help from the Pan American Health Organization, the two sides will coordinate efforts to seek financial resources to combat the pandemic.

The agreement, signed on Monday in Caracas, establishes "priority" measures for dealing with the pandemic, including detection of active COVID-19 cases, epidemiological monitoring and timely treatment of those infected.

Venezuela officially has 1,819 COVID-19 cases and 18 deaths but some international organizations believe this is an underestimate and the real toll is much higher.

In Mexico, the deputy health minister said on Tuesday that the novel coronavirus had reached its maximum intensity in the country after the ministry reported a record increase in daily cases.

As of Tuesday, there were an additional 3,891 cases of the coronavirus and 470 more deaths, taking the country's total to 97,326, with 10,637 deaths.

"The coronavirus epidemic is at its maximum level of intensity," Hugo Lopez-Gatell, who has spearheaded the country's response to the outbreak, said during a regular news conference.

Lopez-Gatell added that the decline in cases was usually slower than the ascent.

Xinhua - Agencies