Vice President Harris will virtually address the UN body at a time when United States is making efforts to help India fight against the pandemic…reports Asian Lite News
Vice President Kamala Harris will tell the members of the United Nations that now is the time for global leaders to begin serious efforts into how they will respond to the next global pandemic, according to media report.
Vice President Harris will virtually address the UN body at a time when United States is making efforts to send Covid-hit India the raw material needed for making Covishield and other products needed in the fight against the COVID-19 surge overtaking the nation.
“At the same time that the world works to get through this pandemic, we also know that we must prepare for the next,” Harris will say, according to excerpts of the speech obtained by The Associated Press.
Harris, according to the excerpts, will broadly outline how the administration thinks the US and other nations should consider focusing their attention. The steps include improving accessibility to health systems, investing in science, health workers and the well-being of women, and surging capacity for personal protective equipment and vaccine and test manufacturing.
Harris’ speech will be co-hosted by UN permanent representatives of Argentina, Japan, Norway and South Africa.
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Meanwhile the overall global Covid-19 caseload has topped 146.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 3.10 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Monday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 146,830,782 and 3,106,384, respectively.
The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 32,077,076 and 572,200, respectively, according to the CSSE.
In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 16,960,172 cases.
The other countries with more than two million confirmed coronavirus cases are Brazil (14,340,787), France (5,559,121), Russia (4,708,640), Turkey (4,629,969), the UK (4,420,443), Italy (3,962,674), Spain (3,468,617), Germany (3,306,692), Argentina (2,860,884), Colombia (2,774,464), Poland (2,758,856), Iran (2,396,204) and Mexico (2,328,391), the CSSE figures showed.
In terms of deaths, Brazil comes second with 390,797 fatalities.
Nations with a death toll of over 50,000 are Mexico (214,947), India (192,311), the UK (127,681), Italy (119,238), Russia (106,434), France (103,017), Germany (81,671), Spain (77,591), Colombia (71,351), Iran (69,574), Poland (65,415), Argentina (61,644), Peru (59,724) and South Africa (54,148).