The coronavirus pandemic “is far from over,” says Tedros, WHO

GENEVA (Reuters) – Confusion and satisfaction with the COVID-19 approach means the pandemic is far from over, but it can be controlled in a few months with proven public health measures, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday.

To date, approximately 780 million vaccines have been administered globally, but measures need to be put in place, including wearing masks and maintaining physical distance to reverse the trajectory.

“And we want to see the reopening of societies and economies and the resumption of travel and trade,” Tedros said in a news briefing.

“But now, intensive care units in many countries are overflowing and people are dying – and it’s totally avoidable.”

“The COVID19 pandemic is a long way from the end. But we have many reasons for optimism. The decline in cases and deaths in the first two months of the year shows that this virus and its variants can be stopped, “he added.

The transmission was caused by “confusion, satisfaction and inconsistency in public health measures”.

India has overtaken Brazil to become the country with the second highest number of infections in the world after the United States as it fights a second massive wave, after delivering about 105 million doses of vaccine in a population of 1 , 4 billion.

“We are in a critical moment of the pandemic now, the trajectory of this pandemic is growing for the seventh week in a row,” said Maria van Kerkhove, leader of the WHO team for COVID-19.

Noting that there was a 9% increase in cases last week, a seventh consecutive week of growth and a 5% increase in deaths, she added: “If you look at the epi curve (epidemic) and the trajectory of the pandemic right now, it grows exponentially ”.

Tedros said that in some countries, despite continuous transmission, restaurants and nightclubs were full and markets were open and crowded, with few people taking precautions.

“Some people seem to take the approach that if they are relatively young, it doesn’t matter if they get COVID-19,” he said.