EUROPE’S most powerful countries urged the European Union (EU) to better prepare for the next pandemic after chaotic responses to the coronavirus, as Moscow emerged from lockdown despite Russia still being in the grip of a surging epidemic.

There should be a “common European approach” to challenges like COVID-19 in the future, leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a letter and policy paper to the European Union’s top official.

Europe has been the hardest-hit continent with nearly 185,000 people killed, and the leaders said a lack of coordination had left nations short of crucial medical equipment when the coronavirus arrived.

Worldwide, COVID-19 deaths have passed 407,000, with more than 7 million infections.

As of Tuesday, the United States recorded 819 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing its own grisly toll to more than 111,000 out of 1.9 million cases — making the country hardest hit by the pandemic in terms of both the number of fatalities and the number of cases.

And the crisis continued to escalate in Latin America, which by late Tuesday had almost 1.4 million cases and nearly 70,000 deaths.

Peru, second only to Brazil as the region’s worst-hit country, announced Tuesday it had passed 200,000 cases of the virus, adding more than 4,000 cases in a single day.

In Nicaragua, at least eight public health doctors were sacked for criticizing the lack of a serious response to the crisis from the government of President Daniel Ortega, an independent medical body said. Nicaragua has been criticized for an almost complete absence of measures to contain the virus.

Despite Europe’s dire record, most EU countries continued to exit their lockdowns Tuesday, with French officials announcing the Eiffel Tower will reopen June 25.(SD-Agencies)