The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan said during an online briefing that the virus may never go away.
The warning comes as more countries plan to reopen its economies to recover from the impact of lockdown measures imposed due to COVID-19.
Indeed, according to the United Nation's World Economic Situation Prospect released on Wednesday, the world economy is expected to shrink by 3.2% or an overall $8.5 trillion total losses. The U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs said COVID-19 could wipe out about four years of economic gain. In its report, the UN said that as of mid-2020, the GDP of developed countries could plunge to -5.0%. As for developing countries, their GDP could shrink by 0.7%.
The warning from WHO and the estimate from the UN came as stock markets around the world rebound in recent weeks following the decline of cases in Asia and Europe. At the same time, parts of the United States and Europe have also laid out plans to lift lockdowns.
On Wednesday, global stocks fell once again as Anthony Fauci, leading U.S. infectious disease expert, warned the reopening of the economy may pave the way to bigger COVID-19 outbreaks. Following Fauci's warning, stocks on Wall Streets plunged overnight.
The stocks' performance was made worse after a U.S. Republican senator proposed giving authorization to President Donald Trump on sanctioning China. The officials demand that China give a full account of events that lead up to the coronavirus outbreak in December 2019. The Trump administration alleged that China is covering some significant findings of the virus that it doesn't want the world to know.
As fo Wednesday, COVID-19 has affected 4,170,424 people worldwide. There have been 81,577 new confirmed cases reported in the past 24 hours. The virus has also claimed the lives of 287,399 people, plus 4,245 new deaths reported in the past 24 hours.
The U.S. still has the highest number of confirmed cases at 1,322,054. The country has 23,767 new cases reported overnight. Deaths are now at 79,634 with new fatalities of 1,918 in the past night.
Europe, meanwhile, has 1,780,316 total cases, plus 24,527 new cases overnight. There are now a total of 159,799 total deaths in the continent, plus 1,918 new deaths in the past night.
Meanwhile, as more countries plan to reopen, nations that have done so are now seeing spike of new cases after lifting lockdown. Of most recently, China, South Korea, and Germany were compelled to tweak policies once more after surge of new cases were reported following efforts to return to life pre-COVID-19.
