The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday warned that the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic might likely worsen in the coming days if countries fail to adhere to strict healthcare precautions, reported Reuters.
“Let me be blunt, too many countries are headed in the wrong direction, the virus remains public enemy number one,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual briefing from the U.N. agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
“If basics are not followed, the only way this pandemic is going to go – it is going to get worse and worse and worse.”
According to a Reuters tally, which is based on government reports, the number of coronavirus infections rose above 13 million across the world on Monday, climbing by one million in just five days in a pandemic that has killed more than half a million people.
Tedros said 80% of 230,000 new cases reported on Sunday were from 10 nations and 50% from just two countries. The United States and Brazil are among the two worst hit countries by the novel coronavirus.
WHO emergencies head Mike Ryan said there is immediate need of limited or geographically focused lockdowns in some places in the Americas to suppress transmission in specific areas where transmission is completely out of control.
Ryan urged countries to reopen schools safely only once the virus had been suppressed. He said a two-member WHO team has been sent to China to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, first discovered in the city of Wuhan. The research team is currently in quarantine, as per standard procedure, before beginning work with Chinese scientists.
The WHO has already acknowledged evidence emerging of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus, after a group of scientists urged the UN health body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people.
