Covid-19: the world facing an endless epidemic

Just six months ago, the world was watching China's neighbors with disbelief, Italy began to lock down its cities, and World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted bluntly. lips that the world should prepare "for a possible pandemic . " The possibility has more than confirmed, and the world mourns more than 800,000 dead, for soon 25 million confirmed cases of infection with the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus. These figures are only a pale reflection of reality, as tests have long been reserved for serious cases, and so many countries are struggling to paint a true picture of the situation on their territory.

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Discovered in December 2019 in the heart of China, Sars-CoV-2 has now been visited in 210 countries and territories. On the map maintained by Johns-Hopkins University, even Greenland shows a small red dot, with 14 cases. The only one to escape it, Antarctica. It's simple: where there are people, there is Covid. And the situation continues to deteriorate, raising fears of a second wave to the point of motivating, here and there, reconfigurations.

In Europe, concern is gradually growing. In Italy, which particularly suffered in March, the circulation of the virus is on the rise again, although Health Minister Roberto Speranza assured Sunday the situation remains under control. Germany is also seeing the number of new contaminations increase, thanks to the return of German tourists who have gone on vacation to risk areas, explain the authorities.

Seoul, which had succeeded in stemming the first epidemic wave without resorting to the massive weapon of containment, recorded the largest increase since the beginning of March in the number of new infections with 397 new cases. "We are on the brink of a national epidemic , " said director of Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) Jung Eun-kyeong.

Almost everywhere in the world, restrictions are increasing after a relative summer easing. Wearing a mask is becoming more and more widespread (the latest, Seoul now requires it in all indoor and outdoor public spaces), curfews have been decreed. Finland introduced strict border restrictions on Monday, while Australia, in the grip of a larger outbreak since early July than that of March / April, has decided to reconfine Melbourne.

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With more than 5.7 million cases and nearly 180,000 deaths, the United States is the most seriously affected country, ahead of Brazil (3.6 million cases, 115,000 deaths) and India (3.1 million cases, 57,500 deaths). The three countries cumulate with Mexico (560,000 cases, 60 .00 deaths), half of the deaths by Covid counted in the world. But international comparisons based on these raw figures remain difficult: the availability of tests and access to the healthcare system, and therefore the count of cases and deaths, are highly variable from one country to another ... Moreover, the epidemic is not adopting the same pace everywhere in the world; thus, if it is sketching a decline in the United States, Brazil and Mexico, it is on the rise in India.

Hope for a vaccine

If we reduce the raw figures to the number of inhabitants, the United States and Brazil seem, with one case for less than 60 inhabitants, much more affected than India with one case for a little more than 400 inhabitants. But the country hardest hit in the world in relation to its population, remains Belgium, which deplores 86 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

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Last week, the World Health Organization said it hoped "to end this pandemic in less than two years," said Dr Tedros. The hopes of the WHO rest in particular on the arrival of a vaccine. On Monday, during a press briefing, Dr Tedros called on countries to continue to unite in the Covax mechanism, which finances the development of vaccines against Covid-19 while ensuring universal access to them when they are at point. "Vaccine nationalism only helps the virus," said the director general of the WHO. “If only a small number of countries have access to the vaccine, it will prolong the pandemic (…). The world has invested $ 3 trillion to keep the economy going. Investing in the Covax mechanism is the fastest way to end the pandemic and ensure a sustainable economic recovery. ” WHO's stated objective: deliver two billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021.

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It remains to be seen what unpleasant surprises Sars-CoV-2 can still have in store for us. Thus, the first case of confirmed reinfection (still under examination by the WHO) was described by researchers at the University of Hong Kong: infected for the first time in March, a 33-year-old young man could have been reinfected. during a trip to Europe: a comparison of the viruses causing the two infections shows that they differ slightly. If this is confirmed, it may be an exception among millions of cases. Or the sign of an immunity too volatile to hope to see Sars-CoV-2 disappear from our lives ...

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