Faced with the worrying rebound of the Covid-19 pandemic in much of Europe and in the United States, the head of health emergencies at the WHO had urgent advice to give to the authorities on Monday, October 19: "
put the cases contacts in quarantine
”.
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“
If I had one magic wish to improve one thing that we can really improve, and be a game-changer, it would be to ensure that every individual in contact with a confirmed case of Covid is quarantined for the time necessary in order to to break the chain of transmission,
”said Dr Michael Ryan, director of health emergencies at the World Health Organization at his bi-weekly conference in Geneva.
“
I don't believe it has been done anywhere systematically,
” and that is “
one of the main reasons we see numbers so high,
” he said.
Explosion of cases
The tracing of contact cases is deficient in many European countries and proven cases of Covid-19 have literally exploded on the Old Continent in the past two weeks, forcing the authorities to resume a whole series of more or less coercive measures to contain the pandemic .
"
About half of the members of the European region of the WHO (which has 48) saw a 50% increase in the number of infections last week
," he insisted.
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What worries Dr Ryan is that the number of hospitalizations and deaths are starting to "
mimic
" the trend, although he noted that the WHO is intrigued and is investigating the possibility that the people affected are "
consuming lower exposure doses
”and are therefore generally less severely affected.
Her colleague, Doctor Maria Van Kerkhove, was surprised for her part that "
the concept of cluster (infections during gatherings) does not enter people's minds
" while "
it is one of the hallmarks of coronaviruses
".
In Europe unlike Asia, where tracing and quarantine efforts have been maintained, spring lockdown periods have been followed in many cases by a loosening of authorities, such as individuals.
"
I know people have had enough but this virus has shown that if we let our guard down it can resurface at high speed and threaten hospitals and health systems
," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
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