Time to double down — not let up, WHO chief scientist warns as Covid cases rise

The mankind needs to ramp up efforts to combat Covid-19 — and countries must not let their guard down, the World Condition Organization’s chief scientist warned Monday as coronavirus cases around the world surge.

“We’re at a very risky aeon,” said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan of the World Health Organization. “We need to double down, this is not the period to let up.”

The WHO last week on guarded that new Covid-19 cases were increasing around the world after six consecutive weeks of declines. More than 2.6 million new trunks were reported in the last week of February, up 7% from the week before, according to the health agency.

It annexed that the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas each saw increases of between 6% and 14%.

“This is partly due to lockdown enervation, you know. It’s due to people … perhaps becoming more casual because they think vaccines are on the way,” Swaminathan told CNBC’s “Complaint Box Asia” on Monday. New variants may also play a part, she added.

“We need to … do everything we know that keeps these viruses in lead, keep transmission down till we have enough vaccines,” she said, warning that health-care systems could fit overburdened again.

“Health workers around the world are exhausted, they’ve been fighting this now for over a year,” she summed.

Other health experts have also expressed that it’s not time to get complacent.

Julie Morita, executive evil president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said it’s important to recognize that infections, hospitalizations and deaths are still pongy chief, even if they have fallen from their peaks in the U.S.

“It is still necessary for us to wear our masks, to do the social spacing, to avoid large crowds, while we’re getting vaccinated,” she told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.

“While the vaccines are ramping up for us in the nation, we cannot let our guard down,” she said. “It’s way too early to be relaxing.”