Economies that were locked down are reopening. Beaches are filling up. Yet the global pandemic is accelerating— including in many countries that are easing their restrictions. It took the world three months to reach 1m confirmed cases; adding the latest 1m took a week. While residents of European countries and US states might hope loosening lockdowns mark the beginning of the end, they are merely the end of the beginning. The pandemic is entering a new phase in which, until there is a treatment or vaccine, the world must learn to live with the virus.
The numbers are grim. Cumulative global confirmed cases are nearing 10m, a quarter of those in the US alone. Daily new cases hit records of more than 180,000 on Friday and Saturday. New US cases are beating their peak from April. With numbers soaring in southern and western states, Florida and Texas reversed their reopenings. Elsewhere in the Americas — now the global centre of the pandemic — Brazil’s total caseload passed 1m. Its total deaths exceeded 50,000, the second country to do so after the US.
While much of the initial spread of the virus after it moved beyond China and east Asia was in western economies, the focus is now the developing world — including some of the world’s most populous nations. New cases are surging from Mexico, to South Africa, to India. In some cases, refusal by populist strongmen to take the virus seriously — Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro called it a “little flu” — has fuelled the fire.