- Trump: Slow down on coronavirus tests
- Women bear pandemic brunt
US President Donald Trump said he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered.
The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests.
At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma Saturday that testing was a "double-edged sword."
The United States—which has more deaths and cases than any other country—has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita.
"Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases," Trump argued.
"So I said to my people 'slow the testing down.' They test and they test."
It was not clear from Trump's tone if he was playing to the crowd, who cheered as he spoke, or if he was being serious.
However, a White House official told AFP that Trump "was clearly speaking in jest to call out the media's absurd coverage. We are leading the world in testing, and we are proud to have conducted 25 million plus tests."
China races to contain new outbreak
China's capital reported 22 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday after a mass testing effort that has collected more than two million samples in a race to contain a new outbreak.
The fresh cluster in Beijing has raised fears of a resurgence of the virus in China, which had largely brought the disease under control over recent months.
Dozens of communities have been sealed off in the city to contain the spread, with residents told to avoid non-essential travel and schools closed.
The new infections reported Sunday include a nurse – the first health worker to test positive since the re-emergence of the illness just over a week ago.
LatAm cases breach 2M mark
Coronavirus infections in Latin America surged past two million on Saturday, with worst-hit Brazil home to nearly half of the cases as the virus accelerates its spread in the region.
With nearly 50,000 deaths and more than one million cases, Brazil is the second worst-affected.
In total Latin America and the Caribbean have 2,007,621 confirmed cases, according to an AFP tally based on official tallies.
The figures were particularly alarming in Chile, where the death toll nearly doubled to more than 7,000 under a revised tallying method, and passed 20,000 in Mexico.
Women bear pandemic brunt
The reverberating economic shock of the coronavirus crisis has delivered a massive setback for women because so many work in the badly exposed services sector, experts say.
The nature of the outbreak means women are more likely than men to lose or quit their jobs in vulnerable low-paying workplaces like bars, conference venues, hairdressing salons, hotels, pubs, and restaurants, which faced extensive shutdowns.
School closures during lockdown have exacerbated the situation because more women than men tend to care for and teach their children, even while working from home.