The head of the United Nations said Sunday that “the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest crisis of our age.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened an online session of the World Health Summit with a call for worldwide solidarity in the global crisis and demanded that developed countries support health systems in countries that are short of resources.
Relatives bury Isaac Nolasco who died of reasons not believed related to COVID-19, in a section of the municipal cemetery Valle de Chalco amid the new coronavirus pandemic, on the outskirts of Mexico City, on Sunday, 25th October. Mexican families traditionally flock to local cemeteries to honour their dead relatives as part of the “Dia de los Muertos,” or Day of the Dead celebrations, but according to authorities, the cemeteries will be closed this year to help curb the spread of COVID-19. PICTURE: AP Photo/Marco Ugarte.
The coronavirus pandemic is the overarching theme of the summit, which originally had been scheduled for Berlin. Several of the leaders and experts who spoke at the opening stressed the need to cooperate across borders.
“No one is safe from COVID-19. No one is safe until we are all safe from it,” said German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “Even those who conquer the virus within their own borders remain prisoners within these borders until it is conquered everywhere.”
More than 42 million have been infected with the virus and over one million people have died of COVID.
Meanwhile, Mexican health authorities acknowledge the country’s true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is far higher than previously thought, saying there were 193,170 “excess” deaths in the year up to 26th September.
Of those, 139,153 are now judged to be attributable to COVID-19. Mexico’s official, test-confirmed death toll is only about 89,000, but officials previously acknowledged many people didn’t get tested or their tests were mishandled.
Authorities had previously presented an estimated death toll of 103,882, after taking into account mishandled tests. But the Health Department said Sunday they had analysed databases to come up with the latest figure. The analysis picked up symptoms related to COVID-19 mentioned on death certificates even if they weren’t listed as the cause of death.
