Surge in Latin America as global coronavirus toll pass 400,000

Surging fatalities in Latin America helped push the global coronavirus death toll above 400,000 on June 7, even as Europe emerged from its virus lockdown with infections increasingly under control there.

Pope Francis, addressing Catholics in Saint Peter's Square on June 7 for the first time since the health emergency began, said the worst was over in Italy and expressed sympathy for those in hard-hit Latin American countries.

"Your presence in the square is a sign that in Italy the acute phase of the epidemic is over," Francis said as the Vatican confirmed it had no more cases of COVID-19 among its employees or within Vatican City.

"Unfortunately in other countries - I am thinking of some of them - the virus continues to claim many victims."

Brazil has the world's third-highest toll - more than 36,000 dead - but President Jair Bolsonaro has criticized stay-at-home measures imposed by local officials and has threatened to leave the World Health Organization.

Tolls are also rising sharply in Mexico, Peru and Ecuador, while in Chile, total deaths have now reached 2,290.
Chilean health minister Jaime Manalich said on June 7 that some miscounting pointed out by the World Health Organization in March and April was corrected, pushing the toll up from 1,541 on June 6.

But in communist Cuba, President Miguel Diaz-Canel declared the pandemic "under control" after the island nation registered an eighth straight day without a death from COVID-19, leaving the toll at 83.

The number of infections has reached almost seven million worldwide since COVID-19 emerged in China late last year, forcing much of the globe into lockdown and pushing the world economy towards its worst downturn since the Great Depression.

However,...

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