Second year of pandemic could possibly be tougher: WHO
The second year of the COVID-19 pandemic could be tougher than the first given how the new coronavirus is spreading, especially in the northern hemisphere as considerably more infectious variants circulate, the World Wellbeing Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.
“We are going right into a second time of this, it might even be tougher provided the transmission dynamics plus some of the concerns that we are witnessing,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s leading emergencies official, said during an event on social media.
The worldwide death toll is approaching 2 million persons since the pandemic began, with 91.5 million persons infected.
The WHO, in its newest epidemiological update issued overnight, said after two weeks of fewer cases being reported, some five million new cases were reported the other day, the likely result of a letdown of defences during the holiday season where persons - and the virus - came together.
“Undoubtedly in the northern hemisphere, particularly in Europe and North America we've seen that sort of perfect storm of the growing season - coldness, people going inside, increased social mixing and a blend of factors which have driven increased transmission in lots of, many countries,” Ryan said.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, warned: “Following the holidays, in some countries the circumstances will get a whole lot worse before it gets better.”
Amid developing fears of the more contagious coronavirus variant first detected in Britain however now entrenched world-wide, governments across Europe on Wednesday announced tighter, longer coronavirus restrictions.
That includes home-office requirements and retail outlet closures in Switzerland, a protracted Italian COVID-19 condition of crisis, and German work to help expand reduce contacts between persons blamed for failed attempts, so far, to have the coronavirus under control.
“I worry that we will stay in this structure of peak and trough and peak and trough, and we can carry out better,” Van Kerkhove stated.
She needed maintaining physical distancing, adding: “The even more, the better...but make certain you keep that range from people outside your immediate household.”
