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Features
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FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2020
Maria Cheng & Mauricio Savarese
SAO PAULO (AP) — As many coun-
tries gingerly start lifting their lock-
down measures, experts worry that
a further surge of the coronavirus
in under-developed regions with
shaky health systems could under-
mine efforts to halt the pandemic,
and they say more realistic options
are needed.
Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, In-
dia and Pakistan are among coun-
tries easing tight restrictions, not
only before their outbreaks have
peaked but also before any detailed
surveillance and testing system
is in place to keep the virus under
control. That could ultimately have
devastating consequences, health
experts warned.
“Politicians may be desper-
ate to get their economies going
again, but that could be at the ex-
pense of having huge numbers
of people die,” said Dr Bharat
Pankhania, an infectious diseases
expert at the University of Exeter
in Britain.
He said re-imposing recently
lifted lockdown measures was
equally dangerous.
“Doing that is extremely worry-
ing because then you will build up
a highly resentful and angry popula-
tion, and it’s unknown how they will
react,” Pankhania said. And as nearly
every developed country struggles
with its own outbreak, there may be
fewer resources to help those with
long overstretched capacities.
World
Health
Organization
(WHO) Director-General Tedros Ad-
hanom Ghebreyesus said on Mon-
day the pandemic was “worsening”
globally, noting that countries last
Sunday reported the biggest-ever
one-day total: more than 136,000
cases. Among those, nearly 75
per cent of the cases were from
10 countries in the Americas and
South Asia.
Wealthy countries in Europe and
North America hit irst by the pan-
demic are training armies of contact
tracers to hunt down cases, design-
ing tracking apps and planning vi-
rus-free air travel corridors.
But in many poor regions where
crowded slums and streets mean
even basic measures like hand-
washing and social distancing are
dificult, the coronavirus is explod-
ing now that restrictions are being
removed. Last week, Brazil, Mexico,
South Africa, India and Pakistan all
saw one-day records of new infec-
tions or deaths as they reopened
public spaces and businesses.
Clare Wenham of the London
School of Economics described
the situation in Brazil as “terrifying”,
noting the government’s decision to
stop publishing a running total of
COVID19 cases and deaths.
“We’ve seen problems with
countries reporting data all over the
world, but to not even report data
at all is clearly a political decision,”
she said. That could complicate ef-
forts to understand how the virus is
spreading in the region and how it’s
affecting the Brazilian population,
Wenham said.
Johns Hopkins University num-
bers showed Brazil recorded more
than 36,000 coronavirus deaths
till last Monday, the third-highest in
the world, just ahead of Italy. There
were nearly 692,000 cases, put-
ting it second behind the United
States (US).
Rio de Janeiro allowed surfers
and swimmers back in the water
and small numbers of beach-goers
were defying a still-active ban on
gathering on the sand.
Relaxing restrictions “is danger-
ous because we’re still at the peak,
In poor regions, easing virus lockdowns
brings new risks
Some experts said lockdowns were always “panic measures” and not designed to be sustainable, particularly in
developing countries.
A railway worker checks the body temperature of a woman wearing a protective mask to help curb the spread of
the coronavirus, on her arrival at a railway station to board on a train, in Karachi, Pakistan. PHOTOS: AP
right? So it’s a little dangerous,” said
Alessandra Barros, a 46-year-old
cashier on the sidewalk next to Ip-
anema beach. “Today it’s calm, but
this weekend will be crowded.”
Bolivia has authorised re-open-
ing most of the country, Venezuelan
President Nicolás Maduro also re-
cently unwound restrictions, Ecua-
dor’s airports have resumed lights
and shoppers have returned to
some of Colombia’s malls.
In Mexico, President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador urged the
country to stay calm after oficials
last week reported escalating fa-
talities that rivaled those in Brazil or
the US.
“Let there not be psychosis,
let there not be fear,” López Ob-
rador said, while accusing the
media of fanning concerns of an
escalating crisis.
Across Latin America, countries
that cracked down early and hard,
like El Salvador and Panama, have
done relatively well, although some
of that has come at the expense
of human rights and civil liberties,
Wenham said.
“Countries willing to take the
short-term hit are the ones com-
ing out better,” she said, adding
that poor countries weren’t entirely
without options, noting early, pre-
emptive actions by Sierra Leone
and Liberia.
“They learned from the Ebola
outbreak and moved quickly when
theydecided their economycouldn’t
cope with community transmis-
sion,” she said. So far, numbers have
been relatively low in both West
African countries.
Dr Nathalie MacDermott, a clini-
cal lecturer at King’s College Lon-
don, warned that some countries
might be lulled into a false sense
of security, citing South Africa as
an example.
“Their response looked quite
promising initially, but it seems
premature to release the lockdown
without a better level of testing in
place,” she said.
South Africa’s cases are “rising
fast” according to President Cyril
Ramaphosa. More than half of its
approximately 48,000 conirmed
cases have been recorded in the
last two weeks, prompting con-
cerns that Africa’s most developed
economy could see a steep rise in
infections shortly after restrictions
are relaxed.
MacDermott said the surge of
COVID19 in many developing coun-
tries suggests “we will potentially
struggle more to get on top of it”,
and that the virus might persist long
after developed countries bring it
under control.
“That could result in very strin-
gent travel measures on those parts
of the world where the virus is still
circulating,” she said.
In Pakistan, the number of in-
fections continued to rise as Prime
Minister Imran Khan said the coun-
try’s poorest cannot survive a strict
lockdown after easing restrictions
last month.
After refusing to close mosques
and opening up the country even
as medical experts pleaded for
stricter measures, Pakistan’s case-
load soared on Monday to 103,671,
with 2,067 deaths. Still, authori-
ties shut down thousands of shops
and markets nationwide last week
in raids of those violating social
distancing regulations.
Some experts said lockdowns
were always “panic measures” and
not designed to be sustainable, par-
ticularly in developing countries.
“The strategy has its roots in Chi-
na, in the desire to eliminate the dis-
ease, but that clearly went out the
window a couple of months ago,”
said Mark Woolhouse, a professor of
infectious disease epidemiology at
the University of Edinburgh.
“Many countries are now de-
ciding that the cure could turn out
to be worse than the disease,” he
said. Woolhouse suggested that
countries unable to lock down their
populations could focus instead on
targetted interventions to protect
those most at risk, such as people
over 60 or those with underlying
medical conditions.
“Countries are simply not fol-
lowing WHO advice to lock down
and are saying they need another
strategy,” Woolhouse said. He noted
the relatively younger demograph-
ics of many developing countries
might help them avoid the high
death rates seen in Italy, Spain
and Britain.
Even tiny Panama, once Latin
America’s fastest-growing econ-
omy, is struggling to maintain
some of the region’s tightest con-
trols amid simultaneous economic
slowdown and disease spread. “It’s
impossible to maintain a quaran-
tine for all of 2020,”’ said Dr Xavier
Sáenz-Llorens, a government ad-
viser on the disease response. “The
country would sink.”
The temperature of a pupil is taken as she returns to school in Johannesburg, South Africa