January 7, 2020. Four years ago the world was shaking. The first news arrived COVID-19 , a virus that emerged on the other side of the planet. That was when we put Wuhan on the map, a huge, empty and confined city.

Numbers of vertigo infections and hospitals built in days were the first effects of a coronavirus until then unknown. “It was not known exactly what we were facing. Furthermore, the information we received from China was not as correct as it should have been,” Amós García Rojas, member of the WHO’s permanent group for Europe, explains to laSexta. “It was not taken into account that it could have the magnitude that it did,” adds epidemiologist Daniel López Acuña.

COVID-19 crossed all borders, infected Europe and sickened Spain. We locked ourselves in the house and applauded the toilets from the balconies. We fought a virus that shook our lives and took too many away. “If we had not confined as we confined, we could have had almost 200,000 more deaths,” says López Acuña.

They were the worst moments of the pandemic. The hospitals couldn’t do enough and the infection numbers did not stop growing. Nor the death figures: In Spain more than 900 people died every day, figures that only stopped containment measures and vaccines. “It has been the great tool that has made it possible for us to domesticate the virus,” defends García Rojas.

Now the scenario is different, we live with a virus that has not disappeared. “COVID-19 is still present and not everyone is adequately protected,” adds epidemiologist López Acuña to laSexta. Less severity and lower mortality, but with infections on the rise: cases of COVID-19 in the world have increased by more than 50% in the last month. Experts warn: It is evident that there will be more pandemics. Climate change, poverty, environmental health and a health system that, they insist, we must take care of and not cut.

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