Beijing, Sunday

China reported its highest daily number of new coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, warning of a second wave as more European countries prepared to reopen their borders.

The shock resurgence in domestic infections has rattled China, where the disease emerged late last year but had largely been tamed through severe restrictions on movement that were later emulated across the globe.

It also gives a bleak insight into the difficulties the world will face in conquering Covid-19, coming as many hard-hit European countries have seen an encouraging drop in contagion and prepare to welcome visitors from elsewhere on the continent.

Of the 57 new cases logged by Chinese authorities, 36 were domestic infections in Beijing linked to a large wholesale food market that has been closed and nearby housing estates put under lockdown.

New cases

“The meat sellers have had to close. This disease is really scary,” said a fruit and vegetable trader surnamed Sun at another central Beijing market, adding there were fewer customers than normal.

The Middle East’s hardest hit country Iran reported its own grim uptick on Sunday, recording more than 100 new virus deaths in a single day for the first time since April 13.

“This is an unpredictable and wild virus and may surprise us at any time,” Iran’s Health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said on Sunday.

More than 430,000 people worldwide have died from the respiratory illness, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have been upended and the global economy ravaged.

The total number of confirmed cases has doubled to nearly 7.8 million in slightly over a month and the disease is now spreading most rapidly in Latin America, where it is threatening healthcare systems and sparking political turmoil.

Brazil now has the second-highest number of virus deaths after the United States, and the Chilean health minister resigned on Saturday amid a furore over the country’s true number of fatalities.

In the US, more than a dozen states, including populous Texas and Florida, reported their highest-ever daily case totals in recent days.      – AFP