As global Covid-19 cases increase over the seventh week, WHO calls for ‘reality check’

by

Maria van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical leader in coronavirus response, said 4.4 million Covid-19 infections had been registered worldwide last week and expressed concern about global trends.

“This is not the situation we want to have in 16 months in a pandemic, where we have proven controls. Now is the time for everyone to have a reality check on what to do,” Van Kerkhove told a news briefing Monday.

Several countries in Asia and the Middle East have seen a large increase in the number of cases, said WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noting that “confusion, complacency and inconsistency in public health measures” were the main drivers.

Those peaks occur despite more than 780 million vaccine doses being administered worldwide, he said, adding that while vaccines were a vital and powerful tool, they were not the only ones available.

Ghebreyesus stressed that public health measures – mask wearing, physical distance, ventilation, hand hygiene, surveillance, testing, detection and isolation – work to stop infections and save lives. “It takes a consistent, coordinated and comprehensive approach,” he said.

Record numbers of infections were recorded in India in the past week as the country continues to roll out one of the world’s fastest vaccination discs with nearly 1.4 billion people.
The country reported 161,736 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, a slight dip after six consecutive days of record one-day increases, according to a CNN count of figures from India’s Ministry of Health. India’s total caseload is over 13.5 million – second only to the United States and Brazil – including nearly 170,000 fatalities.
India’s total caseload is over 13.5 million – second only to the United States and Brazil – including nearly 170,000 fatalities.

Iran, which has the highest number of cases and deaths in the Middle East, entered the fourth wave of the pandemic last week, the health ministry said last week.

The country’s total number of Covid-19-related cases is more than 2 million since the start of the pandemic, with more than 4,200 patients currently hospitalized in the ICU, a health ministry spokesman said Thursday.

More than 4,200 patients are currently hospitalized in Iranian ICUs, and on Saturday the government imposed a 10-day lockdown across most of the country.

Covid-19 has gotten out of hand in Brazil. So why are some officials relaxing restrictive measures?
In Brazil, coronavirus cases are getting out of hand; Last Tuesday, 4,195 people were recorded dead in just 24 hours, the deadliest day of the pandemic on record in the country. While the state of Sao Paulo and the city of Rio de Janeiro are among the worst in the country in terms of Covid-19 deaths, both eased movement restrictions on Monday.

Sao Paulo authorities justified the reopening of schools, sporting events and construction stores by pointing out that the occupancy rate in intensive care units in the state has dropped from 90.5% to 88.6%.

“This measure clearly shows that the efforts of the past few weeks are starting to pay off,” Deputy Governor Rodrigo Garcia said at a press conference on April 9. But the daily numbers are still very serious – the state registered more than 20,000 new cases on Friday alone.

Meanwhile, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the ICU occupancy rate is up 92%, but Mayor Eduardo Paes has nevertheless decided to ease restrictions by saying that “our reality does not allow for a lockdown,” at a news conference on Friday. that retailers and the general population suffer economically from such measures. Still, he said, “This is no time to relax.”

Europe’s third wave

In Europe, many countries are in the throes of a worrying third wave, with a more contagious variant of the virus appearing to be the common culprit behind the chaos in Europe.

Two new studies suggest that the B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, which was first identified in the UK, is more transmissible, but the variant does not appear to affect disease severity in someone who receives Covid-19. The new findings clash with separate research that previously suggested the variant may be linked to a higher risk of dying from Covid-19.

In Germany, cases are on the rise, with health workers “breaking down” and occupancy of ICU beds in the country “reaching its peak,” said the director of the German intensive care association, who warned on Saturday that even with a hard lockdown , the number will increase in the next 10-14 days.

Last month, critics warned that European coronavirus restrictions have come too late and that the continents’ current problems can be traced back to politicians too eager to start relaxing.

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the urgent need for people to be vaccinated to break through the third wave.

Boris Johnson could get out of the pandemic that smells like roses
Meanwhile, England lifted restrictions after more than three months of lockdown on Monday, in a move that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said was a “big step forward” for the country’s “roadmap to freedom”.

As part of “Step 2” upon exiting the country’s lockdown, non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers, beauty salons and zoos were reopened, as well as outdoor areas of pubs and restaurants.

The lifting of the measures coincided with the UK reaching its Covid-19 vaccination target of providing a dose to all adults over 50, the clinically vulnerable and social workers, the UK government said Monday.

A total of nearly 40 million vaccines have now been given in the UK, and adults under 50 are expected to be invited in the coming days.

CNN’s Marcia Reverdosa, Rodrigo Pedroso, Maija Ehlinger, Rishabh M Pratap, Vedika Sud and Esha Mitra contributed to this report.

Source