COVID-19 MAY NEVER GO AWAY; WHO WARNS

The novel coronavirus may never disappear and the entire world populace will have to learn to cope with it, the World Health Organization (WHO) cautioned on Wednesday, May 13th, 2020, in a virtual press conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Now that some jurisdictions around the world are gearing up gradually to ease lockdown orders issued in a quest to quell the coronavirus from spreading, the WHO stated it may never be wiped out completely.

The cruel virus primarily is believed to have emerged in Wuhan in China late last year and has since infected more than 4.2 million people and killed nearly 300,000 globally. In the submission of Michael Ryan, the Emergencies Director of WHO, said that “we have a new virus entering the human population for the first time and therefore it is very hard to predict when we will prevail over it.’’ He proceeded by adding that ‘’this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away. HIV has not gone away, but we have come to terms with the virus.” Meanwhile, more than half of the world’s population has been restricted as far as movements and social gatherings are concern since the sudden upsurge of this virus crisis commenced. The WHO were quick to add that there was no way to guarantee that easing the restrictions would not trigger a second wave of infections and that we have a long way to go on the path to returning to normalcy, insisting that countries would have to stay the course. The WHO Chief reiterated that “there is some magical thinking going on that lockdowns work perfectly and that unlocking lockdowns will go great. Both are fraught with dangers.’’ The Irish epidemiologist also condemned attacks on healthcare workers that were linked to the pandemic, saying more than 35 “quite serious” such incidents were recorded in April alone in 11 countries. He stressed the attacks were often overreactions from ill-informed communities, whiles others were more sinister. ‘” COVID-19 is bringing out the best in us, but its also bringing out some of the worst. People feel empowered to take out their frustrations on individuals who are purely trying to help. These are senseless acts of violence and discrimination that must be resisted,” Dr. Ryan admonished. Instead, he insisted that in getting the antidote to conquer the virus was an opportunity for humanity to take pragmatic step forward by discovering a vaccine and making it accessible profoundly. Credit: WHO||www.who.int