Medical workers move a patient to the intensive care unit (ICU) of Sotiria Hospital amid coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in Athens, Greece, March 1, 2021.
Giorgos Moutafis | Reuters
World Health Organization officials said Wednesday that scientists are trying to understand why Covid-19 cases suddenly spread across large parts of the world after weeks of infections.
Last week, 2.6 million new cases were reported worldwide, 7% higher than the previous week, the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update, reflecting the data received on Sunday morning. This follows six consecutive weeks of declining new business around the world.
The reversal could be caused by the emergence of several new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus, relaxing public measures and so-called pandemic fatigue, in which people become tired of following the precautions, the WHO said in its weekly report. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s unit for emerging diseases and zoonoses, said during a Q&A meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva on Wednesday that the global health agency is trying to better understand what the turnaround in trends in each region and country.
“I can tell you what we are concerned about with the introduction of vaccines and vaccination in a number of countries. We still need people to carry out their measures on an individual level,” she said. to wear masks when you are close to others.
“Seeing this one week of increase in trends, it’s a pretty serious warning to all of us that we should stay the course,” Van Kerkhove said. “We must continue to keep these measures at hand.”
Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergency program, suggested that the rise may be because ‘we may relax a bit before we get the full impact of vaccination.’ He added that he understood the temptation to socialize more and return to normal behavior, but “the problem is every time we do it before the virus has exploited it.”
Ryan reiterated that the cause of the increase in cases remains unclear, but added that the tried and tested measures for public health that have been emphasized throughout the pandemic are still effective.
“If the case gets smaller, it’s never all we do and if it increases, it’s never all our fault,” he said.
Ryan noted that deaths with cases have not increased yet, but that could change in the coming weeks. Hopefully, an increase in deaths can be avoided due to the vaccination of those who are most vulnerable to the disease.
While the introduction of vaccines in some countries is leading to optimism, Ryan noted that many countries around the world have not yet received doses. He said 80% of the doses were administered in just ten countries.
The WHO remarks reflect those recently made by federal officials in the United States. Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been warning for days that the decline in daily new cases in the US has stopped and is ticking upwards.
Over the past seven days, the U.S. has reported an average of more than 65,400 daily new cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. It is well below the peak of about 250,000 new cases each day that the country reported in early January, but it is still far above the infection rate the U.S. saw during the summer when the virus swept across the Song Belt.
“At this level of business, with variants spreading, we could completely lose the hard-earned field we won,” Walensky said Monday. “With these statistics, I’m really concerned about more states reinstating the exact public health measures we recommended to protect people against Covid-19.”
“Please hear me clearly: at this level of cases with variants spreading, we could completely lose the hard-earned field we won,” she said.