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Officials from the World Health Organization announced Monday that 10 percent of the world’s population is likely to have been infected with coronavirus.
Dr Michael Ryan, WHO chief of emergencies, said the organization’s “best estimates” reveal that roughly 1 in 10 people on Earth have been infected with COVID-19. That estimate is more than 20 times greater than the number of confirmed cases worldwide and ultimately means that “the vast majority of the world remains at risk” of exposure. The widespread estimate is around 760 million people, or one-tenth of the world’s 7.6 billion people, who are currently infected with coronavirus.
Ryan warned that the pandemic will continue to evolve, but that healthcare workers around the world have the tools to help suppress transmission and continue to save the lives of the vulnerable, particularly the elderly and those who cannot afford care. Health experts have long warned that the number of confirmed cases in any country greatly underestimates the true number of people infected.
“Our current best estimates tell us that around 10 percent of the world’s population may have been infected with this virus,” Ryan told attendees in Geneva of the member governments that make up the organization’s executive board and provide the majority. of group funds. Ryan said Southeast Asia is seeing an increase in cases, while Europe and the eastern Mediterranean are seeing an increase in deaths. Situations in Africa and the Western Pacific regions have been “quite positive,” he added.
In April, President Donald Trump criticized the WHO for having “failed in its basic duty” to respond to the coronavirus and halt its spread outside China. It stopped funding the WHO, a move that was widely criticized by major donors, including philanthropist and tech entrepreneur Bill Gates, who called it “as dangerous as it sounds.”
At the time, UN Secretary General António Guterres said that the middle of a pandemic “was not the time” for such a major cut to an organization that was helping in the response.
“Many deaths have been prevented and many more lives can be protected,” Ryan said. Its boss, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, led a moment of silence to honor the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as great applause for health workers around the world who have worked on the front line to stop the spread of the virus.
WHO was the target of a recent New York Times Research published last week, which found that the organization has long encouraged mass tourism and opposed border closures, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. WHO officials and relevant experts held the belief that open borders would help doctors fight disease, but the Times The report found that politics had its roots in politics and economics, not science.
Newsweek contacted the WHO on Monday for comments and additional figures, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP / Getty Images
