Brazil now has the world’s third-highest death toll from the virus, but President Jair Bolsonaro has threatened to leave the World Health Organization (WHO) over “ideological bias”, following the example of the United States, AFP reported.

He is among those arguing that the economic damage lockdowns are causing is worse than the virus itself – and the oil industry has been hit particularly hard.

According to a Reuters tally, global cases of the coronavirus neared seven million on Saturday.

About 30% of those cases, or two million infections, are in the United States, though the fastest growing outbreak is in Latin America, which now accounts for roughly 16% of all cases.

Governments are increasingly focused on repairing the economic damage, and even hard-hit European countries are now opening their borders and allowing people to return to work.

But gloomy data from Asia’s two largest economies highlighted the long road to recovery, AFP wrote.

China reported a plunge in foreign trade on the back of subdued consumer demand and weakness in key overseas markets.

Analysts say a deeper downturn in exports is looming for the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, where the virus first emerged late last year.

Factories in India are also struggling to restart because of labor shortages, as the country slowly emerges from a strict nationwide lockdown that sent millions of migrant laborers back to their far-flung home villages.

US ‘largely through’

The worst health crisis in more than a century has infected nearly 6.9 million globally and forced tens of millions out of work just in the United States, the world’s hardest-hit nation.

But President Donald Trump said his country was bouncing back.

“We had the greatest economy in the history of the world. And that strength let us get through this horrible pandemic, largely through, I think we’re doing really well,” he told reporters.

As the country reels from the second weekend of massive protests against racism and police brutality, Trump – facing reelection in November – reiterated his calls to further ease stay-at-home measures.

It followed surprisingly upbeat employment numbers that showed the country gained 2.5 million jobs in May.

EU to reopen borders

In Europe, badly-hit countries slowly continued on a path toward a post-pandemic normal, also seeking to revive key tourist sectors in time for the summer.

The European Union said it could reopen borders to travelers from outside the region in early July after some countries within the bloc reopened to European visitors.

In France, the Palace of Versailles reopened without the US and Chinese tourists that usually make up a third of its visitors.

The country also marked the anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings with a fraction of the big crowds seen in previous years, owing to strict social distancing restrictions.

Signs that life was beginning a return to normal in Europe and Asia were tempered by the bleak numbers streaming in from Latin America.

Brazil’s death toll passed 35,000 as Bolsonaro echoed criticism of the WHO by Trump, who has said the US will defund the organization because it is too close to China.

“The United States left the WHO, and we’re studying that, in the future. Either the WHO works without ideological bias, or we leave, too,” the far-right leader told journalists.

Tolls are also rising sharply in Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador, while in Chile, deaths have risen by more than 50 percent in the past week.