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The World Health Organization’s head of emergencies recommended not being too close to family members during the Christmas season and avoiding hugs to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.
Michael Ryan spoke during an online press conference at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO), and relied on the “shocking” number of covid-19 cases and deaths, especially in the United States, to defend the distance between close people during the Christmas season.
The WHO emergency chief responded to a question about whether hugs could be considered “close contacts” that the United Nations health agency has recommended avoiding in areas with a high spread of the virus.
“It’s horrible to think that we would be here as the World Health Organization telling people not to hug. It’s terrible. But that’s the brutal reality in places like America right now,” admitted Michael Ryan.
“It is quite shocking to see that one or two people die every minute in the United States., a country with a wonderful and strong health system and fantastic technological capabilities, “said Michael Ryan, noting that the country is the third with the most cases of the disease in the world.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the country registers more than 280 thousand dead due to the new coronavirus to date.
The technical officer of the covid-19 of the WHO, Maria Van Kerkhove, highlighted that the Most infections occur between people who tend to spend a lot of time together and share meals indoors., workplaces or homes, but it is sometimes difficult to “unravel” exactly how the virus spreads.
In November, the UK government’s official medical adviser Chris Whitty also said that British people should not hug or kiss their older relatives during the festive season “if they want them to survive to be hugged again.”
Meanwhile, WHO Vaccine Director Kate O’Brien warned that while new immunization campaigns to combat COVID-19 should help delay the pandemic, “having vaccines will not be a change,” that means its automatic end.
Last week, the UK became the first Western country to approve the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and begins vaccinating its highest-risk population on Tuesday in the largest vaccination campaign ever conducted in the country.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,535,987 deaths derived from more than 67 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report prepared by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected at the end of December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
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