Virtual press conference with World Economic Forum on COVID-19: 1 July 2020

[md shukur mahmud]

Six months into this outbreak, we’ve reached the grim milestone of 10 million people infected and half a million lives lost worldwide.

The pandemic is now hitting lower-resource countries with fragile health systems that are less equipped to contain the virus. Infections are accelerating in many parts of the world.

But in our Region, most countries are seeing case numbers stabilize or decline. Some have had no new infections in over a month, and most Pacific islands have yet to report a single case.

Although the numbers in the Western Pacific are smaller than other regions, the impact of this pandemic has been huge, for families, societies and economies. We also know that people everywhere are anxious and