International

Coronavirus pandemic is ‘ACCELERATING,’ warns WHO chief as global death toll keeps rising rapidly

27/03/2020

23 Mar, 2020

The Covid-19 outbreak is far from dying down, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, urging nations to act while it still was possible to “change the trajectory” of the pandemic.

The disease spread is “accelerating,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday, citing the expanding figures of the coronavirus cases.

“It took 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases, 11 days for the second 100,000 cases and just four days for the third 100,000 cases,” he said.

It’s still possible to overcome the negative trend, the official added, urging nations to act.

We are not helpless bystanders. We can change the trajectory of this pandemic.

Cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in “almost every country” in the world, the official added. As of Monday, over 350,000 Covid-19 cases were confirmed and more than 15,000 deaths have resulted.

The WHO chief also took a jab at the lockdown measures implemented by many countries worldwide. While urging people to stay home and practice social distancing, he still argued that this is only buying some time but that those means are “defensive” in their nature. That will not help to “win” over the disease, Ghebreyesus warned.

“To win, we need to attack the virus with aggressive and targeted tactics, testing every suspected case, isolating and caring for every confirmed case and tracing and quarantining every close contact,” he explained, adding that the growing number of infections among medical workers worldwide is an “alarming” trend as well.