BRASILIA (Reuters) – The COVID-19 pandemic is causing an intellectual aptitude crisis in the Americas due to increased tension and drug and alcohol use over six months of lockdowns and home care measures, said the regional director of the World Health Organization. Tuesday.
The pandemic has also caused a similar challenge in increasing domestic violence against women, Carissa Etienne said at a virtual briefing of the Pan American Health Organization in Washington.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an intellectual aptitude crisis in our region on a scale we’ve never noticed before,” he said. “There is an urgent need for intellectual aptitude to be felt as an essential component of the pandemic response.”
Etienne called on governments to expand intellectual aptitude and prioritize intellectual aptitude as a component of their reaction to the pandemic.
Many others are concerned about the serious illness caused by the new coronavirus, while doctors, nurses and fitness workers run longer than ever and risk their lives in hospitals, he said.
We’ll have to pay attention to the increase in domestic violence, Etienne said.
“Continued home care measures, combined with the social and economic effects of this virus, increase the threat of domestic violence; the house is not an area for many,” he said.
Calls from hotlines are highest in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, however, the true extent of the COVID-19 pandemic’s domestic violence is likely to be underestimated, as survivors are trapped in their homes and social assistance facilities are disrupted, Etienne said.
“With reduced contact with friends and a circle of family members or barriers to access and shelters, we leave the survivors with nowhere else to go,” he warned.
Coronavirus cases in the Americas have reached nearly 11.5 million and more than 400,000 people have died as a result of the pandemic, the WHO Regional Director said.
The region continues to bear the highest burden of the disease, with 64% of officially reported deaths worldwide, accounting for 13% of the world’s population. The most important points in the number of instances are the United States and Brazil, he said.
But there are more and more cases in the Caribbean and there are new infections in Peru, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago.
(Report through Anthony Boadle; Edited through Paul Simao)
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