As the coronavirus continues to establish its foothold over every decision world leaders take, the World Health Organization warns that partisan politics and lack of global solidarity is the fuel behind the COVID-19 fire.
"The cracks between people and the cracks between parties is fueling [COVID-19]," Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated during the agency's Monday press conference. "Don't use this virus as an opportunity to fight against each other or score political points. It's dangerous. It's like playing with fire."
The W.H.O. urged countries to come together during this time and work together to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Total Global Cases: Over 2.5 million
Total Deaths: At Least 175,000
Total Recovered: At Least 695,000
America Reopens
The governors of South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee have announced their plans for restarting their economies by the end of the month. However, all three have outlined the social distancing practices must be taken by those who go out in public. South Carolina began to allow retail shops to reopen on Monday and Georgia will allow businesses to open their doors on Friday. Tennessee is waiting the longest of the three, with the state's stay-at-home orders expiring on April 30, allowing most businesses to return on May 30.
The three states have not entered any of the phases in the White House's guideline for reopening, but plan to allow the public to resume their daily lives without the upscaling in testing and slowing of cases that is encouraged by the federal government.
Yet, the coronavirus throughout the United States is far from being under control. Regions outside of the virus's initial takeover of New York and New Jersey have seen an uptake in cases recently. Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee among others have seen significant outbreaks of COVID-19.
Mapping the Spread
San Francisco Mayor London Breed stated on Monday that her city is now mapping and reporting confirmed cases of COVID-19 by ZIP code, as well as by gender, age, race and ethnicity. Breed stated on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) that what the map reflects: "is the existing health disparities and inequality that existed within our city before COVID-19, which is why we continue to focus on protecting our most vulnerable residents.
Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) also released a coronavirus symptom tracking map on Monday. The map tracks symptoms county by bounty across the United States and the social media company plan to update its information daily throughout the outbreak.
To create the tracker, Facebook partnered with Carnegie Mellon University to design an user opt-in survey that will help identify COVID-19 hotspots before cases can be confirmed with testing. The map helps break down the percentage of the population per county that have self-reported coronavirus symptoms to the program. More than 1 million people have responded to the survey in the last two weeks, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating that the company would be able to offer the survey worldwide this week.
More Testing
Novartis (NYSE: NVS) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct a randomized trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for the possible treatment of COVID-19. The Swiss pharmaceutical company plans to start recruiting 440 patients across the United States for its late-stage trial within the next few weeks. The company said that they will report results as soon as they are available.
Use of the drug hydroxychloroquine, approved for the treatment of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, for the potential treatment of COVID-19 has been praised by the Trump administration for weeks. There currently is no proven treatment or cure for COVID-19.