Covid infections are increasing rapidly once more in the U.S. and Latin America as more contagious variants spread, putting the entire region at risk, World Health Organization officials said Wednesday.
The renewed spikes are also contributing to instability and violence across several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, officials said, noting political upheaval in Haiti, Cuba and other nations as the delta variant takes hold in those nations.
“Many countries, including the United States, are seeing a resurgence of infections in North America, the U.S. and Mexico are reporting an increase in new infections across most states, many Central American nations are also seeing cases,” Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO’s regional bureau for the Americas, said in a briefing Wednesday.
Countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba and the Virgin Islands are also seeing increases in the number of new infections, Etienne added.
