Health professionals disinfect streets in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the host of APEC 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)
In its statement on COVID-19, they said: “We, the APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade, recognise the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are deeply saddened by the human losses due to the pandemic. We also express our utmost appreciation to the frontline workers around the world, in particular those from member economies, for their contribution and sacrifice in protecting public health. We are aware that the health and economic crises the global community is facing have long-term adverse repercussions on the lives and livelihoods of our people.”
“We are also concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable developing economies. We reaffirm the utmost importance of collaboration at all levels and across the region to hasten our fight against COVID-19 and commit to work closely to defeat this pandemic with urgency,” the statement stressed.
They acknowledged that while halting the spread of COVID-19 currently remains the top priority of every economy, remedying the economic challenges must also be accorded a specific focus.
They stressed the importance of keeping the markets open and working together to deliver a free, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable and stable trade and investment environment, to ensure that trade and investment continue to flow in these trying times.
The statement urged APEC economies to implement emergency measures designed to address COVID-19 challenges. “These measures should be targeted, proportionate, transparent, temporary and should not create unnecessary barriers to trade, and be consistent with World Trade Organization,” the statement noted.
In addition, the ministers encouraged APEC economies to act swiftly in providing timely and affordable access to essential healthcare services, and implement measures to further enhance the resilience, scalability and sustainability of the healthcare systems.
The ministers stressed that returning workers to employment should be a high priority for all economies. Apart from this, developing a coordinated approach to collecting and sharing information on policies and measures, and including stimulus packages for the immediate responses to the economic crisis and long-term recovery packages, were mentioned as effective ways to respond to the economic challenges brought on by the pandemic.
According to the statement, APEC’s digital agenda, including electronic commerce and related services, will be strengthened in order to effectively work towards mitigating the health and economic impact caused by COVID-19, fast-track the revitalisation of the region’s economy and foster secure growth moving forward.
World’s COVID-19 situation on May 5th
As of 08h00 on May 5th (Vietnam time), the world reported up to nearly 3,723,000 COVID-19 cases, including 257,896 fatalities and nearly 1.237 million cases recovered. The US remains the world’s center of COVID-19 as it has announced over 1.236 million infections and 72,167 fatalities.
The UK officially surpasses Italy in number of fatalities due to COVID-19. (Photo: Getty Images)
The UK on May 5th recognised nearly 30,000 deaths due to COVID-19, the highest recorded in Europe, and the country also officially surpassed Italy in the number of deaths due to the pandemic. So far, the UK has reported more than 195,000 cases of COVID-19.
Russia recorded the number of COVID-19 infections of more than 155,370, including 1,451 fatalities and 19,865 recovered.
In Australia, the country recorded losses of billions of USD each week, with nearly 1 million lost jobs due to COVID-19. The Australian Government’s figures released on May 5th showed that Australia's economy will suffer a loss of AUD4 billion (USD2.5 billion) per week if the blockade measures to prevent COVID-19 continue to be applied.
In Southeast Asia, on May 5th, Dr. Li Ailan, representative of the World Health Organization in Cambodia, warned of the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in this country despite its effective response to the first one.
On May 5th, Indonesian health officials announced that the country had recorded an additional 484 cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases in this Southeast Asian nation to 12,071. This is also the day with the greatest number of reported cases in the country.
On the same day, the Singapore Ministry of Health confirmed an additional 632 COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 19,410 people, including 18 deaths.
Meanwhile, the Philippines Ministry of Health also reported 637 fatalities due to COVID-19, among 9,684 infections.
In Malaysia, 30 more cases of COVID-19 were reported on May 5th, bringing the total number of cases to 6,383 people, with 106 deaths.
Meanwhile, the disease situation continued to change positively in Thailand as the country on May 5th recorded only one additional case of COVID-19. This is the lowest number of new cases recorded in a day in the last 2 months.
To date, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Timor-Leste have not recorded any deaths due to COVID-19./.