The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a video marking the Sunday of the first international day of preparation for the epidemic “history tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life.”
What it says: Tedros said responses to such outbreaks were “dangerously short-sighted,” throwing money at the issue without preparing for the next one.
“With investments in public health, backed by a comprehensive approach to government, society as a whole, one health, we can ensure that our children and their children inherit a safer world. More resilient and sustainable.”
- “The pandemic has highlighted the intimate links between human, animal and planetary health,” the WHO director-general added.
- “Any effort to improve human health is doomed if it does not address the critical human-animal interface and the existential threat of climate change that makes our land less habitable.”
By numbers: Nearly 332,000 Americans died from COVID-19 and nearly 19 million tested positive for Johns Hopkins.
- Globally, almost 1.8 million people have died from the virus and more than 80.3 million have tested positive.
The whole picture: Several countries have reported cases of a new strain of COVID-19 first detected in England – one of many countries imposing restrictions on citizens to reduce spike cases.