WHO welcomed on Monday the ebb of the new coronavirus pandemic in a number of countries but called to exercise " extreme vigilance " during the period of deconfinement. Part of Europe, including France and Spain, began Monday to relax the restrictions on movement of people put in place to limit the spread of the virus and avoid submerging their health systems.
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The deconfinement testifies in these countries "to the success " of the efforts carried out to " slow down the virus and save lives ", estimated the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a virtual press conference in Geneva, headquarters of the UN agency. The head of health emergency issues at WHO, Michael Ryan, also welcomed a reason for " hope " but urged the countries concerned to show " extreme vigilance ".
While among these countries that he did not name " many have made significant investments to improve their public health capacities during containment, others have not ". " If the disease persists at a low level in countries that do not have the capacity to study the outbreaks, to identify them, there is always the risk that the disease will start again, " he warned.
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Some countries have launched themselves “ blindly ” into this deconfinement without having the means to test and trace suspect cases while they still have time, he regretted. WHO officials have argued that a return to normal cannot, based on current epidemiological knowledge, be based on a hypothetical " collective immunity ". " Preliminary serological studies show that a relatively small proportion of the population has antibodies to Covid-19, " said Tedros, which means that " most of the population remains exposed to the virus ."