Covid toll crosses 800k; WHO hopes it will end in 2 yrs

GENEVA: The world crossed grim milestones on Saturday with more than 800,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths and 23 million confirmed infections, a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) said the coronavirus pandemic could be controlled in less than two years.

The US had its fourth day in a row with more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths on Friday. In the Spanish capital Madrid, officials recommended people in the most affected areas to stay at home to help curb the spread as the country registered more than 8,000 new cases in 24 hours. France also reported a second day of more than 4,000 new cases.

South Korea said it will extend Level 2 social distancing measures, currently in place in Seoul and Busan, to the rest of the country from Sunday. Australia’s Queensland state imposed tougher restrictions in its southeast after a flareup at a Brisbane youth detention centre.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sought to draw favourable comparisons with the flu pandemic of 1918. “We have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness, but an advantage of better technology, so we hope to finish this pandemic before less than two years,” he said.

However, Mark Walport, a member of UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), feared the pathogen will be present “forever in some form or another”, the BBC reported. He argued that Covid-19 won’t be a disease like smallpox, which was possible to eradicate through vaccination. Instead, it is “a bit like flu” and that “people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals”, Walport said.

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