Disturbing details have emerged from dozens of countries that a “toxic lockdown culture” against the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted drastically on society’s most vulnerable members, the UN human rights Office (OHCHR) said on Monday. The development follows UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s call last week for States not to use the COVID crisis as a pretext for repressive measures, in which he urged Governments to recognize that the threat was the “virus, not people”.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), outlined his agency’s latest advice to countries on Monday in a statement, stressing that a mix of social distancing, testing, contact tracing and isolation, will be crucial to further curb the spread of the new coronavirus already devastating much of the globe. 

The decision by many Governments to release prisoners to slow the transmission of new coronavirus, was welcomed on Friday by the UN’s top rights official, Michelle Bachelet. 

Sudan’s Prime Minister survived a reported assassination attempt in the capital Khartoum on Monday, tweeting after the incident that he was “safe and in good shape”.