A senior World health Organization official said Wednesday that the second year of the new coronavirus epidemic could be worse than the first, because the rapidly spreading variant of the virus has complicated the response to the outbreak in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere, U.S. media said.
Nearly 2 million people have died from Newcastle pneumonia since the epidemic began a year ago, the Washington Post reported on Jan. 13. While governments are rolling out vaccines, the U.S. and other countries are dealing with a highly contagious mutation that occurred in the New Year.
Given the transmission dynamics and some of the problems we’re witnessing, things are likely to be even tougher as we end the first year and move into the second,” said Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Department of Health Emergencies Planning. We need to really focus on taking proactive measures, looking at what works in each country and then transferring that knowledge to other countries.”
Ryan said that after a temporary lull during the holidays due to a drop in reported cases, WHO has seen cases start to increase again.
Ryan said, “All regions except Southeast Asia are showing increases. The Americas region still accounts for more than half of all cases globally and 45 percent of new deaths.” Europe is still growing, but the rate of growth has slowed, he said. Europe still accounts for one-third of new reported infections.
Maria van Kerckhove, WHO’s technical lead for the new coronavirus, said countries that have managed to contain the spread of the virus cannot afford to let up. If transmission capacity is reduced, do everything possible to keep it at a low level,” she said. Prevent a resurgence from turning into a forest fire.”
Transmission rates in the United States are at dangerously high levels, with nearly 250,000 new infections reported each day. The disease killed a record 4,300 people in the U.S. on Tuesday, bringing the total number of deaths to more than 380,000.
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