The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that most people across the globe are still at risk of coronavirus infection and that the biggest threat to further spread is complacency, as mass gatherings resume in countries worldwide.
What We Know:
- The coronavirus pandemic is worsening across the globe as the number of new Covid-19 cases on Sunday reached an all-time high, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference at the agency’s Geneva headquarters.
- He said that almost 75% of the cases come from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia. “I would say right now the epidemic in Central and South America is the most complex of all of the situations we’ve faced globally,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s emergencies program.
- In the U.S., the death of George Floyd has sparked outrage and protests have drawn massive crowds in cities nationwide, the WHO said it supports the global movement against racism but encouraged protesters to do so safely.
- Coronavirus cases in the U.S. have slowly started to pick up since the Memorial Day holiday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Some public health and infectious disease experts have warned that recent mass gatherings in the country will likely lead to a second wave of Covid-19 infections this fall.
- In late May, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will cut its ties with and end funding for the World Health Organization. He has repeatedly criticized the WHO’s response to the coronavirus, which has hit the U.S. worse than any other country.
The WHO, however, is still collaborating with U.S. colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, as well as a number of academic institutions, and “that will continue,” Kerkhove said.
