The northern hemisphere will soon enter winter and the WHO fears that this will accelerate infections.
Several countries are facing an increase in coronavirus cases and they are rethinking what actions to take in order not to let the infection curve rise.
On this issue, the World Health Organization (WHO) considered this Friday that in countries where there is a strong increase in coronavirus cases, such as some in central and eastern Europe, it will be difficult to escape new restrictions, at least for a short time.
“Frankly, some countries are in such a complicated situation that it will be difficult for them not to put restrictive measures in place, at least for a short period of time to reduce the intensity of transmission,” said the WHO director of health emergencies, Mike Ryan, at a press conference in Geneva.
He considered that for other countries that are not in an alarming situation, “it may not be too late to convey to the population that it is necessary to use masks again, avoid congested spaces, work from home and maintain social distance.”
According to Ryan’s analysis, what is being observed in Europe is the result of a combination of a rapid lifting of prevention measures in the context of the pandemic and insufficient vaccination rates.
He argued that governments should assess the decisions they make based on the time of the pandemic in which they are, but that it is clear that in those where only 30% to 50% of people have been vaccinated, it should be understood that this does not it may have fully covered the population at risk.
“There are significant groups of the population that remain unvaccinated and in these cases the same incidence of cases (with respect to countries with higher vaccination rates) will lead to greater pressure on the health system,” he warned.
The WHO assured that the new wave of COVID-19 that is hitting Europe is occurring especially among unvaccinated people, since vaccines have shown to have high efficacy even in the face of the delta variant, which has become the dominant one and is more transmissible than the original coronavirus, which began to spread in late 2019.
The head of the anti-COVID technical cell at the WHO, María Von Kerkhove, said that what is happening in Europe, with the increase in cases and deaths, “was totally predictable, because when you stop using masks, you keep distance with others or avoiding large groups of people, and all this in the context of a limited vaccination, it is normal for the virus to spread ”.
“The deaths that are happening could have been avoided,” he said.
The northern hemisphere will soon enter winter and the WHO fears that this will accelerate infections because people spend more time indoors.
Von Kerkhove said investing in good ventilation in closed public places is essential in these circumstances. (I)
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