‘Lockdowns not enough to defeat coronavirus’
LONDON (Reuters) – Countries can’t simply lock down their societies to defeat coronavirus, the World Health Organization’s top emergency expert, Mike Ryan, said on Sunday, adding that public health measures are needed to avoid a resurgence of the virus later on. “What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them,” Ryan said in an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “The danger right now with the lockdowns... if we don’t put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up.”
Meanwhile, the Russian military will start sending medical help to Italy beginning Sunday and the Spanish government wants to extend for another 15 days a 15-day state of emergency, which it imposed this month to try to curb the spreading outbreak.
Much of Europe and the US have followed China and other Asian countries and introduced drastic restrictions to fight the new coronavirus, with most workers told to work from home and schools, bars, pubs and restaurants being closed.
Ryan said that the examples of China, Singapore and South Korea, which coupled restrictions with rigorous measures to test every possible suspect, provided a model for Europe, which the WHO has said has replaced Asia as the epicenter of the pandemic. “Once we’ve suppressed the transmission, we have to go after the virus. We have to take the fight to the virus,” Ryan said.
Italy is now the worst hit country in the world by the virus, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that Britain’s health system could be overwhelmed unless people avoid social interactions. British Housing
Minister Robert Jenrick said that production of tests would double next week and ramp up thereafter.
The Russian military will start sending medical help to Italy after receiving an order from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the country’s defense ministry said in a statement.
Putin spoke to Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Saturday, the Kremlin said, adding that the Russian leader had offered his support and help in the form of mobile disinfection vehicles and specialists to aid the worst hit Italian regions.
Russia will deliver eight mobile brigades of military medics, special disinfection vehicles and other medical equipment about 100 military specialists in virology and epidemics, the Moscow-based Interfax news agency cited the defense ministry as saying.
Italy recorded a jump in deaths from the coronavirus of almost 800 on Saturday, taking the toll o almost 5,000.
Spain’s state of emergency, announced on March 14, bars people from all but essential outings as the country grapples with Europe’s second-worst coronavirus outbreak.
The extension would need to be approved by parliament but that is guaranteed after Spain’s main opposition party, the conservative People’s Party, said it would support it, giving Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party and its government coalition partner Unidas Podemos enough votes in the chamber.
Spain’s death toll from the coronavirus epidemic soared to 1,720 on Sunday from 1,326 the day before, according to multiple media outlets citing the latest health data.
The number of registered cases in the country rose to 28,572 on Sunday from 24,926 in the previous tally announced on Saturday, the reports added.