New Delhi (NVI): The coronavirus pandemic is not even close to being over and is in fact speeding up in some parts of the world, said World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus adding that about 1,80,000 people worldwide have tested positive in the last 24 hours.
Tedros noted that, six months after China first alerted the WHO to a novel respiratory infection, the grim milestones of 10 million confirmed infections and 500,000 deaths had been reached.
“We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is that this is not even close to being over. Although many countries have made some progress globally, the pandemic is actually speeding up,” WHO chief said while addressing a virtual media briefing.
“Some countries have now experienced a resurgence of cases as they start to reopen their economies and societies,” Tedros said. “Most people remain susceptible. The virus still has a lot of room to move.”
He further added, “For many of our countries to really not hunt down this virus is our failure in contact tracing, because we have lame excuses, saying it’s too many and it’s too difficult to trace.”
Tedros also said that the WHO would be sending a team to Wuhan next week to investigate the potential animal source of the new coronavirus.
As per the latest data by Johns Hopkins University, a total of 10,199,798 coronavirus cases and 5,02,947 deaths have been reported so far around the globe.
-CHK
