LONDON – The pandemic is reaching deadly new heights around the world, the WHO warned this week, even as the focus in some countries, including the US, has shifted to how quickly restrictions can be relaxed as vaccination rates soar.
“All over the world, cases and deaths continue to increase at an alarming rate,” said WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a press conference on Friday. “Globally, the number of new cases per week has nearly doubled in the past two months. This is approaching the highest number of infections we have seen during the pandemic to date. Some countries that previously avoided widespread transmission are now seeing a surge in infections. . “
Most of the new infections have been observed in Brazil and India, the second and third most affected countries. Earlier this week, the non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders warned that Brazil’s response to the coronavirus had driven the country into a “humanitarian disaster.” The country failed to impose an effective, centralized response and was responsible for more than a quarter of the world’s COVID-19 deaths up to last week, the group said.
Some experts have warned that recommendations for social aloofness in India are not being followed, and this week the government made a desperate appeal to citizens to wear masks.
“If we, all, start wearing masks from today or tomorrow, we will see an immediate dip in this,” Vinod Kumar Paul, a member of the government’s planning committee, said at a press conference on April 13. no mass. We have to maintain social distance and hygiene, then this virus will stop for good. And we have said repeatedly that wearing a mask is an effective social vaccine, which we must start today. “
Of the 1,185 daily deaths reported in India in the 24 hours leading up to Friday, about a third were in Maharashtra state, home to Mumbai, which was shut down this week.
Still, the sacred festival of Kumbh Mela has seen millions of Indians traveling across the country, with images of devotees bathing in the Ganges with no regard for social aloofness, and hundreds of positive cases have been linked to the festival, according to the BBC. . In recent weeks, the country has reported more than 100,000 new confirmed cases daily.
With the country struggling to stem the spread of the coronavirus, vaccine exports have been suspended at the country’s Serum Institute, which produces most of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses distributed by the COVAX program. According to the Ministry of Health, India has vaccinated more than 100 million citizens so far.
And in Europe, where most countries have passed lockdowns to cope with rising infection rates, WHO regional director Hans Kluge announced that more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths had been surpassed in the European region.
“The situation in our region is serious – 1.6 million new cases are reported every week,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. ‘That’s 9,500 per hour, 160 people per minute. We only see a decreasing incidence in the oldest. ‘
On Monday, parts of the UK cautiously emerged from a months-long lockdown, with al fresco dining in bars and restaurants, as well as shops, open to customers. Now the country is reporting some of the lowest proportional number of cases and deaths in Europe, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson liked to emphasize was the work of lockdowns – not vaccinations.
“But it’s very, very important for everyone to understand that the reduction in this number – in hospitalizations and deaths and infections – has not been achieved through the vaccination program,” he said this week. “People don’t appreciate, I think, that it’s the lockdown that’s been overwhelmingly important in making this improvement happen.”
Even countries initially lauded for tackling the pandemic, such as Germany, are now struggling, according to Reuters. German doctors have demanded measures to deal with deteriorating hospital situations, with Angela Merkel given new powers to impose local lockdowns if cases cross a certain threshold.
And while Britain is relaxing its lockdown laws, France enacted a national lockdown earlier this month. The country became the third country in Western Europe – after the UK and Italy – to record more than 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus.