Europe: one person dies every 17 seconds per choir …

The the second wave of contagion hits Europe hard, which has become, once again, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, as World Health Organization regional director Hans Kluge reported on Thursday. In addition, he warned that the continent has already exceeded 15.7 million cases and 355,000 deaths, with over four million cases reported just in the first half of November.

“Currently, Europe accounts for 28 percent of global cases, with 26 percent of cumulative deaths in the region,” he said.Last week, Europe recorded more than 29,000 new deaths from Covid-19. This means that a person dies every 17 seconds “, Kluge added. According to these figures, the number of deaths in the region has increased by 18%.

At the same time, Kluge said there were some promising signs that the measures taken by the governments of several European countries – including the United Kingdom, France and Spain – to stop the spread of the virus are working. Thus, the number of weekly cases in the region fell last week for the first time in three months, falling 10 percent to 1.8 million.

Against this background, Kluge stressed that social and health workers are under enormous pressure and making great sacrifices, so greater responsibility is needed on everyone’s part for the difficult season that looms in winter.

However, he reaffirmed his position that “confinement is a measure of last resort” and assured that the World Health Organization maintains its strong commitment to help the countries of Europe to keep schools open because ” they are considered to be the main drivers of the transmission. “