WHO warns second year of coronavirus pandemic could be more difficult than in 2020

The second year of the coronavirus pandemic can be more complicated than the first. The alert was launched on Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO), despite the start of vaccination campaigns in 40 countries around the world, especially in Europe, the United States and some Latin American countries, like Argentina.

Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO) health emergency program, said “The second year of the pandemic can be more difficult than the first considering how the new coronavirus is spreading, especially in the northern hemisphere As things progress more infectious variants are circulating.

// The world has passed 90 million cases of coronavirus

“We are entering a second year of what could be even more difficult due to certain transmission dynamics“, He explained.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director for COVID-19, predicted that “after the holidays, in some countries, the situation will get much worse before it gets better”. Last week, around five million new cases were reported worldwide, según datos del organismo.

Earlier this week, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan warned that in 2021 collective immunity could not be obtained, despite the fact that coronavirus vaccines are already being administered in several countries.

“The deployment of vaccines takes time. It takes time to get production up to billions of doses, ”Swaminathan said.

The scientist said that “vaccines will arrive” and “they will go to all countries”, but recalled that in the meantime “there are measures that are working”.

We’re heading into a second year which could be even more difficult due to some streaming dynamics.

Swaminathan urged people to continue taking precautions such as physical distancing, hand washing and the use of masks to fight the pandemic, which will be necessary “at least for the rest of the year” .

The world has passed 90 million infections for disease. This new step comes amid an increase in cases in many countries due to the so-called “second wave” and the spread of new, more contagious variants of the virus, which has already claimed the lives of nearly 2 million of people.

According to the most recent data from the American University of Johns Hopkins, the number of infections in the world doubled in just 10 weeks, after reaching 45 million at the end of October. At the start of this week, they amounted to 90,270,044.