There are now 332,930 confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide plus 40,788 new cases confirmed in the past 24 hours (March 22-23). 14,510 people already died as of March 23, plus 1,727 new reported fatalities in the past 24 hours.
In his speech on Monday, Director General for the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic is accelerating. He highlighted that it took the world 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases. By comparison, it only took 11 days for the second wave of 100,000 patients to be confirmed. Just as officials thought that was the highest rate in the shortest time period, it only took four days for the third 100,000 cases.
As the rest of the world faces an increasing number of cases, COVID-19 continues to infect people in other nations which would otherwise haven't reported any cases. Mozambique in the African region, Grenada in the Region of the Americas, and Syria in the Eastern Mediterranean region have reported their first cases in the past 24 hours.
The patient in Mozambique is a 75-year-old man who came back from Britain in mid-March. The patient in Grenada also traveled from the United Kingdom and went home to the island on March 16.
Of most worrying is the first case reported in Syria. The country is still in the middle of a civil war. Humanitarian workers dread the possible catastrophe if the virus gains a foothold in the war-ravaged nation.
The patient is a 20-year-old woman who went home to Syria from an undisclosed country. The Syrian government has since banned public transport and implement a prisoner amnesty Sunday. The government has already shut down schools, restaurants, and parks.
Observers and critics, however, pointed out that Syria still allows entry from Iran while Iran is the hardest-hit in the Eastern Mediterranean region and among the most virus-ravaged worldwide.
Still, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenie refused the offer of humanitarian aid from the United Staes, pointing to a widespread conspiracy theory claiming the novel coronavirus is man-made from the US.
As of Monday night, Iran has 21,638 cases, 1,028 new cases; 1,658 deaths, and 129 new deaths in the past 24 hours.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reiterated the country's refusal of humanitarian aid from the US. She argued that if America really wants to help Iran, it should lift the economic sanctions it imposed, most especially to its oil industry. The US, on the other hand, maintained no sanctions will be lifted.
Meanwhile, the US is engaged in the same war of words with China. US President Donald Trump keeps calling COVID-19 "Chinese virus" to the frustration of the Asian nation.
On Monday, a Chinese embassy in France also mentioned that the novel coronavirus' real origin is in the US. The embassy noted that the US closed a biochemical weapons research in Maryland. After closure, the US started reporting higher cases of pneumonia in the country. If this is the storyline to be followed, China was just the one that identified a mysterious string of pneumonia instead of the coronavirus having its roots in Wuhan as what is being reported.
