The World Health Organization cautioned North America, Southeast Asia and Europe about scaling back on restrictions too quickly in the fight against COVID-19. There have been at least 5.5 million infections worldwide, with nearly 1.7 million of those cases in the United States.
The US is now closing in on a staggering 100-thousand deaths.  And South Africa will start to reopen its economy next week, after a two-month lockdown. The country of 57-million people reports nearly 24,000 cases, and close to 500 deaths and officials warn it could get worse.

To discuss:

• John Quelch is the dean of the University of Miami’s Herbert Business School.
• Gavin Macgregor-Skinner is the director of Global Biorisk Advisory Council and an infectious disease specialist.
• Nathan King is CGTN’s White House correspondent.
• Ebrahim Rasool is the former South African Ambassador to the US and Founder of World for All Foundation.
• Angelo Coppola is a CGTN correspondent based in Johannesburg.

For more:

While the number of #COVID19 cases (which are counted cumulatively) are increasing, other indicators used to track weekly national trends in the level of illnesses, hospitalization rates and the proportion of deaths from #COVID19 fell from the prior week: https://t.co/zP4VYlo0Pb pic.twitter.com/sM3fmh0VOk

— CDC (@CDCgov) May 25, 2020

People stand in line to receive food aid amid the spread of coronavirus, at the Itireleng informal settlement, near Laudium suburb in Pretoria, South Africa.

📷 Siphiwe Sibeko / @reuters pic.twitter.com/7KQXzFkjsX

— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 20, 2020