The coronavirus pandemic has dug its roots deep all throughout the world, with nations continuing to struggle against their first or even second waves of outbreak in an ongoing and exhausting containment process. On Sunday, the World Health Organization reported a staggering 183,000 new global cases, the largest single day increase the pandemic has recording in its almost seven months of known outbreak. And cases keep climbing, with numbers in countries like Brazil, India and the United States continuing to increase exponentially.
During a press conference on Monday, W.H.O.'s head of emergencies Dr. Mike Ryan noted that "the [case] numbers are quickly rising because the epidemic is developing in a number of populous countries at the same time," even as outbreaks appear to be stabilizing in most of Western Europe.
"We do not believe this is a test phenomenon," Ryan stated. "There definitely is a shift in that the virus is now very well established. The epidemic is now peaking or moving towards a peak in a number of large countries," with Ryan adding that the virus's spread is accelerating in a number of countries.
Meanwhile, health officials in South Korea stated on Monday that they now believe they are in the midst of a second wave of infections in the densely populated capital city of Seoul. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Jeong Eun-kyeong stated during a briefing on Monday that a holiday weekend in May marked the beginning of a new wave of infections in the city and surrounding areas.
"In the metropolitan area, we believe that the first wave was from March to April as well as February to March. Then we see that the second wave which was triggered by the May holiday has been going on," Dr. Jeong stated, reported by Reuters. "We originally predicted that the second wave would emerge in fall or winter...As long as people have close contact with others, we believe infections will continue."
Total Global Cases: Over 9.1 Million
Total Deaths: Over 474,000
Total Recovered: Over 4.9 Million
Treatment Developments
In an open letter published on Monday, Gilead Sciences
Currently, remdesivir can only be administered daily intravenously in a hospital settling. The new inhaled version of the drug would be given through a nebulizer, which adds to the potential for the drug to branch into other health settings outside of a hospital to help treat earlier stages of the disease.
In addition, the company has begun testing the anti-viral in combination with immune modulators like JAK inhibitor barictitinib (Eli Lilly's
Remdesivir currently holds an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients intravenously.
