BEIJING: China reported its highest daily number of new coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, triggering fears of a second wave of infections as more European countries prepare to reopen their borders.

The shock resurgence in domestic infections has rattled China where the disease emerged late last year but had largely been tamed through severe restrictions on movement that were later emulated across the globe.

It also gives a bleak insight into the difficulties the world will face in conquering Covid-19, as many hard-hit European countries have seen an encouraging drop in contagion and prepare to welcome visitors from elsewhere on the continent.

Of the 57 new cases logged by Chinese authorities, 36 were domestic infections in Beijing linked to a wholesale food market.

Beijing has raced to quash the new outbreak, carrying out mass testing, issuing travel warnings, closing the market, deploying paramilitary police and putting nearby housing estates under lockdown.

More than 10,000 have already been tested in the area, with another eight cases diagnosed on Sunday.

“I went to Xinfadi market, so I want to confirm that I am not infected,” a 32-year-old woman surnamed Guo said as she queued at a stadium for a test.

The Middle East’s hardest hit country Iran reported its own grim uptick on Sunday, recording more than 100 new virus deaths in a single day for the first time since April 13.

And there have been two new outbreaks in Italy, which was the world’s most affected country for some time earlier in the year but has since moved to lift its lockdown.

Both clusters are in Rome, with 109 infections including five deaths diagnosed at a hospital and nine cases detected at a building inhabited by squatters.

“No one had any illusions that the problems were over,” World Health Organisation deputy director Ranieri Guerra said. “It means the virus hasn’t lost its infectiousness, it isn’t weakening.

“Such micro-outbreaks were inevitable, but they are limited in time and space. And today we have the tools to intercept them and confine them.”

More than 430,000 people worldwide have died from the respiratory illness, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have been upended and the global economy ravaged.

The total number of confirmed cases has doubled to nearly 7.8 million in slightly over a month and the

disease is now spreading most rapidly in Latin America, threatening healthcare systems and sparking political turmoil.

Brazil now has the second-highest number of virus deaths after the United States, and the Chilean health minister resigned on Saturday amid a furore over the country’s true number of fatalities.

In the US, more than a dozen states — including populous Texas and Florida — reported their highest-ever daily case totals in recent days.

The pandemic has put pressure on healthcare systems across the world and surging infections have exposed a deadly shortage of hospital beds in India’s capital.

“They don’t care whether we live or die,” said Kashish Jain, whose father died from coronavirus in the back of an ambulance as his family raced around Delhi, pleading with hospitals to take him.

The crisis has also led to the mass suspension of immunisation programmes for other diseases.

Afghan officials said polio had been detected in areas of the country that had been previously declared free of the life-threatening disease.

Many European nations are further lifting painful lockdowns that have saved lives, but have also withered economies and wearied confined populations.—AFP

The EU has recommended that member states fully reopen their frontiers with each other from Monday, but the reopening of borders has been far from harmoniously coordinated.

Poland has already allowed people from other European Union countries to visit, and Germany said it would end land border checks on Monday.

Spain said on Sunday it would reopen its borders to EU countries — except for Portugal — on June 21.

In another joyful return to semi-normality, football superstar Lionel Messi took to the pitch again in Spain as Barcelona resumed their La Liga title challenge and mauled Real Mallorca 4-0 in an empty stadium.

But stadiums have been full in New Zealand, with 43,000 rugby fans watching Auckland Blues beat Wellington Hurricanes on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2020