Europe tops Americas in daily COVID-19 cases

BOGOTA, Colombia

Europe has surpassed the Americas in the number of daily coronavirus cases.

The region, which is enduring a second COVID-19 wave, is reporting around 200,000 daily infections -- more daily cases than India, Brazil and the US combined.

Meanwhile, the American continent is registering nearly 100,000 coronavirus cases daily.

However, Latin America is the region with the highest number of confirmed cases globally, at more than 10.6 million, accounting for more than a quarter of the cases worldwide, while Europe has so far reported about 7.8 million total coronavirus cases.

Paraguay

Paraguay's main airports are receiving international flights for the first time in seven months after restrictions were put in place to help control the spread of the coronavirus.

Speaking Thursday from Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Asuncion, President Mario Abdo Benitez said measures have been adopted to guarantee that the opening of flights will not increase the risk of the coronavirus spreading.

Paraguay boasts one of the lowest infection and mortality rates in Latin America, with 56,819 cases and 1,250 deaths.

Brazil

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday visited Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, who has announced he is infected with COVID-19.

In a video posted on social media by the president, the two men are seen chatting without wearing masks in Pazuello's room. They are seen speaking about how easy it is to recover quickly from the disease with the help of the controversial drug chloroquine.

With Pazuello, half of Bolsonaro's 23-member cabinet has been infected with COVID-19.

Brazil recorded 33,862 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours and 497 deaths, the Health Ministry said Thursday. It has registered more than 5.3 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 155,900.

Dominican Republic

A day after the Dominican Republic’s Health Minister Plutarco Arias was diagnosed with COVID-19, the entire Ministry of Public Health staff underwent COVID-19 testing Thursday.

Arias announced on Twitter that he was infected by the virus Wednesday.

"Today I received the results of my routine COVID-19 test, which was positive. Although my clinical case is stable, I will remain isolated to carry out the treatment and protocol established. We put our health and that of every Dominican man and woman in God's hands," Arias wrote.

The country has 122,873 confirmed cases of the virus, according to a tally by US-based Johns Hopkins University, with 2,212 reported deaths.

Peru

Peru's government said Thursday that it will not sign an agreement with AstraZeneca for an eventual acquisition of its coronavirus vaccine due to "insufficient" information about the product.

“All countries are willing to take some risk with an emergency vaccine, but we can't take that much of a risk," said Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti.

Mazzetti said vaccines will not be mandatory and that the people will be able to decide if they will be vaccinated or not.

"It is the obligation of the State to vaccinate. If people do not want to be vaccinated, they do not have to get vaccinated," she said.

Peru has 876,885 cases and nearly 34,000 coronavirus related deaths.