The head of the World Health Organization has said the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come.
“Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday, reports VOA News.
“Let’s prevent this tragedy. It’s a virus that many people still don’t understand,” he added.
He likened the coronavirus epidemic, which has globally infected nearly 2.5 million people and killed more than 170,000, to the Spanish flu in 1918 that killed as many as 100 million people worldwide. But he said that such a dreadful outcome can be averted.
“Now we have technology, we can prevent that disaster, we can prevent that kind of crisis,” Tedros said.
His statements come in response to moves by many countries to reopen some of their businesses and slowly return toward normalcy.
Republican governors of three states in America announced plans to ease lockdowns and allow some businesses to reopen on Monday.
Norwegian students returned to school on Monday and some students in Denmark returned to school last Wednesday. Sri Lanka plans to lift some lockdown restrictions next Wednesday.
Other countries, including Germany, Serbia, and Albania also eased their coronavirus restrictions on Monday.
Tedros also defended the WHO against US President Donald Trump’s accusations that the agency failed to share information about Covid-19 sufficiently and transparently in the early days of the outbreak.
“There is no secret in WHO because keeping things confidential or secret is dangerous. It’s a health issue,” the WHO chief said.
Trump has halted US funding to the WHO. Washington had been the agency’s biggest donor.
