COVID-19 far from over yet: WHO

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

With over 511,000 deaths and more than 10.5 million known infections worldwide, the coronavirus pandemic is not even close to being over, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned earlier this week.

The Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has stated that the global coronavirus pandemic was accelerating, pointing out that June saw more than half of all cases reported since the start of the pandemic.

"For the past week, the number of the new cases has exceeded 160,000 on every single day. Sixty percent of all cases so far have been reported just in the past month," he told a virtual briefing. 

Tedros reiterated that taking a comprehensive approach was the best way to rein in the virus as the countries having implemented a wide range of measures, including contact tracing, isolation, physical distancing and mask wearing, have suppressed transmission and saved lives. 

The UN health agency was therefore very concerned, he said, to see that a number of countries had not used all the tools at their disposal and have taken a fragmented approach. "These countries face a long, hard road ahead," observed while stressing that while the pandemic posed a scientific challenge it was also a test of character.