WHO says COVID-19 by far its worst global health emergency
The HinduThe new coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 16 million people is easily the worst global health emergency the World Health Organization has faced, its director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday. Only with strict adherence to health measures, from wearing masks to avoiding crowds, would the world manage to beat it, Tedros added at a virtual news briefing in Geneva. Resurgences of the coronavirus in various regions, including where nations thought they had controlled the disease, are alarming the world, with deaths nearing 6,50,000. WHO emergencies programme head Mike Ryan said far more important than definitions of second waves, new peaks and localised clusters, was the need for nations around the world to keep up strict health restrictions such as physical distancing. Release that pressure and cases creep back up,” he said, acknowledging, however, that it was virtually impossible for nations to keep borders shut for the foreseeable future.