Even as India witnesses flattening of pandemic curve, coronavirus is back with vengeance across globe with 5.45L positive cases on Thurs
India may be witnessing a flattening of Covid-19 curve, but the virus is back with a vengeance across the globe. The world recorded 5.45 lakh cases on Thursday, the biggest single-day spike during the last 10 months when the pandemic first struck the globe.
The powerful “second wave” has shaken the world after the virus took a breather for a few weeks across Europe, the USA, and Latin America and people were beginning to think that the worst maybe behind.
The global trend reversal has a clear message for India, where the number of new cases has come down drastically over the last few weeks. Any complacency could see the onset of a similar dangerous “second wave” that could impact the nascent economic recovery and pose a serious challenge to health infrastructure and medical fraternity.
The addition of nearly five and a half a million cases in a day carried an ominous portend that situation could get out of control with the onset of winter. The dangerous dimension of the “second wave” could be gauged from the fact that the world took five months to add 5.45 lakh cases between January 22 and May 24, whereas it needed just 24 hours to make the matching gain on October 29.
Europe has seen a massive rebound in coronavirus cases after countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy celebrated nearly three months of respite from the virus and number of new cases came down to between 30,000 and 40,000 a day in the region.
Just two months ago on August 29, Europe recorded just 42,000 new cases in a day. On October 29, this figure went up to 2.39 lakh, underlining the enormity of the crisis staring Europe.
Three months ago it seemed that Italy was all but free of coronavirus. The country added just 289 new cases on July 29, but on October 29, the figure of new cases touches 26,000.
On July 29, France added just 1,392 new cases, but three months down the line on October 29, it added more than 47,000 new cases. The same has been the story of the UK and Germany.
The Latin American nations such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru have also seen a sharp rise in the number of new cases.
With the world better prepared to deal with Covid-19, the second wave is turning out to be far less fatal than the first one. The Thursday death toll stood at around 7,000, which denotes a casualty rate of around 12 per cent on the total count of 5.45 new cases on that day.
When the coronavirus first struck Europe and the USA, the fatality rate went up as high as 8 per cent.
The USA has also seen the arrival of a powerful second wave as the poll-bound country has completely disregarded the protocol required to contain the menace.
After recording sub 50,000 new cases daily for weeks, the USA suddenly saw a massive rise in the number of new cases. On Thursday, the new cases stood at 91,000. But Americans continued to throng at the rally of US President Donald Trump in big numbers.
The resurgence of the coronavirus cases could derail the nascent the global economic recovery. A Reuters poll of around 500 economists revealed that a majority of economists expect the rebound next year to be weaker than previously thought.
The Oct 6-Oct 27 Reuters polls of economists across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, covering 46 economies, showed scant sign of activity recovering to pre-Covid-19 levels anytime soon.
Nearly three-quarters of 150 analysts who responded to an additional question said the resurgence in virus cases posed a high risk of halting the current global economic recovery as early as this year.
