The global coronavirus pandemic is worsening, said WHO. (Representative)
Geneva, Switzerland:
The World Health Organization said on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic situation is worsening worldwide, as it warns of complacency.
WHO said it had the highest number of new infections per day, with COVID-19 raging in the Americas.
And as mass protests for racial justice spread to the United States and beyond, the United Nations health agency has urged anyone protesting to do so safely.
The new coronavirus has killed more than 403,000 people out of at least seven million infected since the outbreak of the epidemic in China last December, according to a count of official sources compiled by AFP.
After East Asia, Europe has become the epicenter of the disease, but has now been overtaken by the Americas.
“Although the situation in Europe is improving, it is getting worse around the world,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a virtual press conference in Geneva.
“More than 100,000 cases have been reported in nine of the past 10 days. Yesterday, more than 136,000 cases have been reported – the most in a single day so far.
He said that almost 75% of Sunday’s cases came from 10 countries – mainly in the Americas and South Asia.
Protest “safely”
Tedros said that in countries where the situation was improving, “the biggest threat now is complacency”, adding that “most people in the world are still susceptible to infection”.
“More than six months after the start of this pandemic, this is not the time for any country to ease off,” he said.
Turning to the wave of protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd on May 25, Tedros urged active surveillance of the virus to make sure it didn’t rebound, especially in the context of mass rallies.
“WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism. We reject discrimination of all kinds,” he said.
“We encourage everyone who protests around the world to do so safely.
“As much as possible, keep at least a meter of the others, clean your hands, cover your cough and wear a mask if you attend a demonstration.”
“Stay at home if you are sick and contact a health care professional,” he added.
Protesters in quarantine?
WHO has repeatedly stressed the importance of tracing those who may have been in close and sustained contact with an infected person.
WHO emergency director Michael Ryan said that a person who participated in a mass demonstration did not necessarily meet the technical definition of a contact.
“It comes down to analysis of local public health and local risk management,” he said.
“There may be situations with mass gatherings where local public health officials, on the basis of great caution, could advise people to quarantine or get tested.”
Ryan added: “We hope that in any mass gathering now … the people who now have four to five months to really internalize, that someone who is not doing well … should really be at home and not participate no public activity.
“But we will always defer to national and subnational authorities if they want and need to take the necessary public health measures that are based on risk assessment, based on scientific evidence.”
Tedros said WHO has so far shipped more than five million personal protective items to 110 countries.
The global health organization aims to ship more than 129 million items of PPE to 126 countries.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
