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The World Health Organization on Monday praised the decline in COVID-19 infection rates and deaths in some countries, but asked nations to show “extreme vigilance” as they begin to loosen their restrictions.
Bands of Europe began the long process of reopening coronavirus blockades on Monday, with officials in countries like France and Spain emboldened by declining death rates.
“The good news is that there has been great success in curbing the virus and ultimately saving lives,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a virtual conference.
Meanwhile, WHO chief emergency officer Michael Ryan hailed the gradual lifting of the blockades as a sign of “hope.”
But he warned that “extreme vigilance is required.”
More than 280,000 people have died from the more than four million known COVID-19 infections worldwide.
And while the drastic measures implemented by many countries have allowed them to gain tentative control over the virus, there is widespread fear that there may be new waves of intense transmission.
Ryan urged countries to increase their public health responses, making sure they can identify new cases, and track and isolate all contacts, which he said could help “avoid a major second wave.”
But he warned that while “many countries have made very systematic investments to develop their public health capabilities during the blockades, others have not.”
– Without ‘collective immunity’ –
“If the disease persists in low-level countries without the ability to investigate groups, identify groups, there is always a risk that the disease will take off again,” he said.
Without naming names, Ryan charged that some countries were choosing to “go through this blind” by not dramatically increasing their ability to test and track cases while given the chance.
The WHO warned against the notion in some countries that even if they do not take the necessary steps to stop the spread of the virus, their populations will rapidly develop so-called “collective immunity”.
“The first serological studies show that a relatively low percentage of the population has antibodies against COVID-19,” said Tedros, noting that this means that “the majority of the population is still susceptible to the virus.”
More than 90 serological studies were conducted in more than 90 countries, revealing the presence of antibodies in the blood to determine if a person has had a previous infection.
WHO’s COVID-19 technical director Maria Van Kerkhove said that although the UN agency has not yet been able to critically evaluate the studies, initial published data showed that between 1 and 10 percent of people had antibodies.
“There seems to be a consistent pattern so far that a low proportion of people have these antibodies,” he said.
Ryan agreed, saying that the first results debunked the widespread assumption that most cases of the virus were mild and went undetected.
The preliminary results were “to show otherwise … that the proportion of people with significant clinical disease is actually a higher proportion” than previously thought, he said, stressing that “this is a serious disease.”
“This idea that perhaps countries that have lax measures … will suddenly magically achieve some herd immunity, and so if we lose some older people along the way … it’s a really dangerous calculation,” he said. said.
