The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) top emergencies expert called on European governments to take decisive against COVID-19 and break the chain of transmission as infections continue to soar in the region, during a press briefing on Friday.
This comes as Europe surpassed 100 000 daily reported COVID-19 cases for the first time on Thursday, after countries including France, Russia and the UK saw no respite from the mounting number of infections every day in the past five.
At a press conference in Geneva, Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said it was “sad to see many countries in Europe experiencing a rapid rise in cases, and governments do have to take decisive action in order to try and shut down transmission.” He added that as the level of transmission increases, it is very difficult not to put restrictions in place.”
He noted that governments were trying to avoid lockdown while also breaking the chain of transmission which could become “exceptionally difficult when there is intense community transmission.”
“What we want to try and avoid, and sometimes it’s unavoidable, we accept that, but what we want to try and avoid are these massive lockdowns that are so punishing to communities, to society and to everything else.
So, we don’t want to flip from, you know, no cases, everything is open, a few cases, everything shuts down again, because that’s exactly the sort of scenario that we want to try and avoid.
What we really need to focus on is ensuring that as cases come back, and they will and do come back, and this virus is clearly showing that it’s got a lot of life left in it, the vast majority of people in the world are still susceptible to the disease, and we need to make sure that we’re also focusing, not just on restrictive measures, but on the surveillance, on the testing, on the tracking, on community empowerment, on education, on everybody taking their responsibility, the community their responsibility, and the government their responsibility,” Ryan said.
Physical distancing, wearing masks, and proper ventilation remained key, Ryan said. He also reminded European countries to be very, very careful with any forms of mass gatherings.
Older populations and other vulnerable groups likely to suffer severe disease must be protected, he added.
WHO on Friday reported a record one-day increase in global coronavirus cases, with the total having risen by 350,766 in 24 hours to more than 36.58 million. More than 1 million people having died, it said.
WHO COVID-19 briefing:
