As Malta Reopens And Europe Recovers, Coronavirus Cases Worldwide Explode
Today is a special day for Malta. As the island reopens a slew of establishments on the first day of “normality”, the smell of victory is in the air. Meanwhile, however, the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide is multiplying at its fastest pace yet.
While developed countries have been mostly recovering from a months-long battle with the coronavirus, emerging hotspots in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Middle East have only just started to feel the full force of the virus.
On 30th May, more new cases were reported in a single day worldwide than ever before: 134,064.
And this wasn’t a one-off case either: more than 100,000 new cases are being reported every single day.
According to a New York Times database, twice as many countries have reported a rise in new cases over the past two weeks as have reported declines, with most of these countries being ones that had yet to face the full wrath of COVID-19.
On Tuesday, Brazil’s death toll passed 30,000 after 1,262 people died, its highest one-day toll yet. Brazil is in fact suddenly the second-worst hit country in the world, with a total of 614,941 cases… more than the entire population of Malta. Meanwhile, Egypt’s numbers are only starting to rise now, hitting 27,536 earlier this week.
Back in Europe, Sweden’s controversial decision to avoid strict lockdown restrictions might be coming back to haunt the Scandinavian country, with chief state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell saying on Wednesday that the country should have done more to combat COVID-19. Sweden has seen consistently higher daily death tolls than all of its Nordic neighbours who went into full lockdown.
There have been more than 6.5 million cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide, and nearly 400,000 known deaths. More than a quarter of all deaths have been in the US.
While all of this is happening, Malta has registered some of its best weeks yet, with no daily cases reported for most of the last days.
The current number of active COVID-19 cases in Malta is the lowest its been in over two months, with only 37 people having yet to recover from the virus and around 1,000 swab tests being carried out on a daily basis.
What do you make of this? Do you think an eventual second wave is inevitable, or has Malta permanently won the tough war against COVID-19?
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