New Delhi (NVI): Lockdowns, being implemented by several countries to combat COVID-19, will not be enough to eradicate the virus from the world, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said.
“Asking people to stay at home and shutting down population movement is buying time and reducing the pressure on health systems. But on their own, these measures will not extinguish epidemics,” he said.
“We squandered the first window of opportunity,” Tedros said while addressing a press conference, adding “The time to act was actually more than a month ago or two months ago.”
Tedros noted, “The pandemic continues to take a massive toll.”
He further said, “We call on all countries who have introduced so-called lockdown measures, to use this time to attack the virus. You have created a second window of opportunity, the question is how will you use it?”
The WHO Director-General said that the world has overcome many pandemics and crises before. “We will overcome this one, too. The question is how large a price we will pay,” he said.
The number of people infected with the novel coronavirus globally has exceeded 4,14,179 over 18,440 have died, according to the WHO report.
