Coronavirus worst humanity crisis since WWII: UN chief Guterres

Guterres

UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres

UN Secretary-general Antonia Guterres: coronavirus worst humanity crisis since World War II

United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres has described coronavirus pandemic as humanity’s worst crisis since World War II.

He spoke as the global death toll worsened despite unprecedented lockdowns.

The extraordinary economic and political upheaval spurred by the virus presents a real danger to the relative peace the world has seen over the last few decades, Guterres said Tuesday.

The “disease… represents a threat to everybody in the world and… an economic impact that will bring a recession that probably has no parallel in the recent past.”

“The combination of the two facts and the risk that it contributes to enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict are things that make us believe that this is the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War,” Guterres said.

Around half of the planet’s population is under some form of lockdown as governments struggle to halt the spread of a disease that has now infected more than 860,000 people.

Well over 40,000 are known to have died, half of them in Italy and Spain, but the death toll continues to rise with new records being logged daily in the US.

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President Donald Trump has told Americans to brace for a “very painful” few weeks, as the country registered its deadliest 24 hours of the crisis on Tuesday.

“This is going to be a very painful — a very, very painful — two weeks,” Trump said, describing the pandemic as “a plague.”

“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead.”

There are now around 190,000 known cases in U.S, a figure that escalated to the humongous level in just five days.

On Tuesday, a record 865 people died, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. This took the national toll so far to more than 4,000.

Members of Trump’s coronavirus task force said the country should be ready for between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths in the coming months.

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