PARIS -- Struggling to contain resurgent virus infections, European leaders decried a collective failure to vanquish the pandemic and told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the time has come for countries to reinvent international cooperation.
This year's unusual work-from-home General Assembly -- with leaders communicating only in prerecorded speeches -- comes as covid-19 cases escalate in many regions but especially in Europe, where some of the world's most advanced hospitals in some of the world's richest countries are again under strain.
"This emergency has, more than a thousand treaties or speeches, made us suddenly realize that we are part of one single world," said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
The pandemic "has also revealed the fragility of countries that thought they were strong. It has thrown us all into the same sudden battle, against the same common enemy," European Union Council President Charles Michel said.
Italy's prime minister, whose country became a global symbol of the crisis as the first in the West to face a vast wave of infections, said the pandemic should offer world governments "the opportunity for collective renewal."
[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]
"This tragedy has changed us, but has also offered us the opportunity for a new beginning that is up to us to seize," Giuseppe Conte said.
Worldwide, the confirmed covid-19 death toll is nearing 1 million. In times of global crisis, Europe's rich governments are often looked to for financial and material aid for poorer ones. But this time, they're preoccupied with troubles of their own.
As infections tick up, EU countries are again imposing quarantines on visitors from neighboring nations. Britain and Spain are imposing local lockdowns, the French Open is curtailing access, and covid intensive care units in the Mediterranean city of Marseille are reaching saturation.
"In every corner of the world today, there is a young man, a young woman, looking at their cellphone screen. In the most secluded streets of Naples, in a fish market in Instanbul, in the Zocalo in Mexico City, in the Ecuadorian Amazon or in a market in India. These young people have seen their fathers, their mothers, work ceaselessly," Sanchez said. "And maybe these young people wonder why their fathers, their mothers, work ceaselessly if nothing changes around them.
"Exactly when did we decide that the expression 'to change the world' had lost all sense and meaning? I wonder if any of those millions of young people are watching us right now, on their mobile phones. I wonder what they're thinking of us, if so."
He also lamented the extra toll the virus has taken on women, "who have taken on the greatest burden of care and attention."
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said it's time for Europe to "redefine its role in the world," and took aim at the World Health Organization's management of the virus.
Other leaders called for boosting the WHO's powers and its funding. Greece's prime minister appealed for more international help for its migrant crisis after feeling abandoned by fellow EU countries that closed their doors to refugees washing up on Greek shores.
And Michel used the virtual U.N. pulpit to lash out at Britain for its threats to renege on parts of the Brexit treaty it signed with the EU.
Pope Francis said the world has a choice to make as it tries to emerge from the covid-19 crisis and address the grave economic impact it has had on the planet's most vulnerable: greater solidarity and multilateralism, or a self-retreat into greater "individualism and elitism."
Echoing many speakers at this week's virtual gathering, the Dutch leader said the pandemic should be a wake-up call for the world and the U.N. itself.
"If we're truly going to defeat this virus we'll have to do even more to enhance international cooperation," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. "We can't tackle today's challenges with yesterday's structures."
Information for this article was contributed by Raf Casert, Nicole Winfield, Barry Hatton, Joseph Krauss and Jenn Peltz of The Associated Press.
