Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday urged countries to enhance the implementation of coronavirus pandemic response measures, as the disease continues to wreak havoc around the world.
Tedros made the remarks at a press conference at the WHO headquarters, as there are two million newly confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide each week, with the global death toll already exceeding one million.
Tedros said that the WHO will further support the anti-coronavirus measures across member states through its regional and country offices, urging leaders to strengthen their response.
“With strong leadership, clear and comprehensive strategies, and consistent communication, and an engaged, empowered and enabled population, it is never too late to turn the tide. We urge every single leader to strengthen their response, put target measures in place that we know can suppress the spread, ensure that health systems and workers are protected and saves lives,” he said.
Tedros highlighted that the countries in the world can be roughly divided into four groups based on different epidemic situations, starting with countries that have brought the coronavirus under control and avoided massive outbreaks. The second group being countries which already saw a large-scale coronavirus outbreak but still managed to control the disease and continuously prevent its further spreading.
The third kind of countries are those that are contained the epidemic but are now seeing a rebound in infections due to loose economic and social limits. The last group is countries that are seeing surging infections and deaths among their population.
Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said that the United States has every ability to curb the spread of coronavirus epidemic, but needs to step up anti-epidemic efforts.
“There is no reason why the United States of America cannot control this disease, turn the corner, get these disease under control. But that requires work. Corners don’t turn by themselves, you’ve got to fight the virus, you got to push the virus down. You’ve got to protect individuals, you got to save lives. That casts: it casts effort, it casts commitment, it casts transparency and it casts honesty,” said Ryan.
According to the data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US, the country reached 7,260,465 confirmed cases as of Friday, about a fifth of the total number in the world, including 207 302 deaths.
