DONALD Trump ordered a freeze on funding for the World Health Organization for “mismanaging” the coronavirus crisis, as world leaders weighed easing lockdowns that threaten to tip the global economy into a second Great Depression.
The death toll from the pandemic has topped 125,000, with nearly two million people infected by the disease that has upended society and changed lives for billions confined to their homes around the globe.
And with the world battling to get on top of the pandemic, the US President fired a broadside at the WHO and halted payments that amounted to $400 million last year.
The outbreak could have been contained “with very little death” if the WHO had accurately assessed the situation in China, where the disease broke out late last year, charged Trump.
He earned a rebuke from the head of the UN and entrepreneur Bill Gates who tweeted that cutting funding was “as dangerous as it sounds.”
Nevertheless, Trump vowed to reboot large sections of the world’s top economy “very soon,” saying the US would reopen “in beautiful little pieces”, with the hardest-hit areas such as New York taking slightly longer.
The virus-hit Chinese economy, second only to the US in size, likely contracted for the first time in around three decades in the first quarter, according to an AFP poll of economists on Wednesday.
– ‘Open in a desert?’ –
With tentative hope the pandemic could be past its peak in some European hotspots, many countries are gradually lifting restrictions — to mixed reception.
Italy, one of the hardest-hit nations, allowed bookshops, launderettes, stationers and children’s clothing retailers to re-open, but many business owners chose to stay shut.
“Open in a desert? Why? Opening a business where no one walks by is dangerous from every point of view,” said Cristina Di Caio, a bookshop owner in Milan.
Spain has allowed work to restart in some factories and construction sites, Denmark opened schools on Wednesday after a month-long closure while Germany was expected to ease some lockdown measures.
Also Wednesday, the European Union is poised to suggest a coordinated “road map” for member states to exit the lockdown.
– ‘Unenforceable and unsustainable’ –
As the virus appeared to be on the retreat in some parts of richer Europe, it is slowly taking hold in Africa, which has seen 15,000 cases and 800 deaths continent-wide — with fears over growing hunger and possible social unrest.
“A lockdown is unenforceable and unsustainable across much of Africa,” said Jakkie Cilliers at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
“It’s not possible for 10 people living in a tin shack… to not go outside for three weeks.”
A similar crisis is emerging in Ecuador, where hunger trumps fear of the virus for residents in rundown areas of the badly affected city of Guayaquil.
“The police come with a whip to send people running, but how do you say to a poor person ‘Stay home’ if you don’t have enough to eat?” said Carlos Valencia, a 35-year-old teacher.
Examples of human resilience and generosity continued to lift the spirits.
While a 99-year-old British World War II veteran raised millions for health workers by walking lengths of his 25-metre garden using a strolling frame, a man of the same age beat the virus in Brazil.
“It was a tremendous fight for me, greater than in the war. In war, you kill or live. Here, you have to fight in order to live, and you leave this fight a winner,” said Ermando Piveta.
AFP