Orlando: Florida’s Walt Disney World theme park reopened Saturday in a state hard hit by the coronavirus, as the World Health Organization issued a fresh warning that countries should step up pandemic restrictions.
Hundreds of people in face masks and some in red Mickey Mouse ears queued to enter the Magic Kingdom, with social distancing and hygiene precautions in place.
The Disney complex is in Orlando, Florida - one of several states where the daily rate of new cases of the virus has been increasing.
The WHO on Friday urged countries grappling with coronavirus to step up control measures, saying it is still possible to rein it in, as some nations clamped fresh restrictions on citizens.
With case numbers worldwide more than doubling in the past six weeks, Uzbekistan returned to lockdown and Hong Kong said schools would close from Monday after the city recorded “exponential growth” in locally transmitted infections.
The novel coronavirus has killed over 560,000 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
More than 12.5 million cases have been registered in 196 countries and territories, triggering massive economic damage.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to adopt an aggressive approach to tackling the virus, highlighting Italy, Spain, South Korea and India’s biggest slum to show it was possible to stop the spread, no matter how bad the outbreak.
The health agency’s comments came as US President Donald Trump was forced to cancel an election rally in New Hampshire, citing an approaching storm.
Trump has pushed to hold large gatherings against health advice as epidemiologists warn of the dangers posed by the virus moving through the air in crowded and confined spaces.
