Hope now but world still in huge fight: WHO

LONDON/GENEVA: Parts of the world are starting to emerge from the Covid 19 pandemic and to cautiously resume some sort of normal life, but the new coronavirus will pose significant risks until vaccines are developed, the World Health Organisation’s top emergencies expert said yesterday.

Executive director of the WHO’s emergencies programme, Mike Ryan, said while many countries were still in the eye of the storm, others were beginning to show it was possible to contain the disease to some extent.

‘‘In that sense, there’s hope,’’ Ryan said from Geneva.

‘‘At a global level the situation is still very, very serious but the pattern of the disease and the trajectory of the virus is very different in different parts of the world right now,’’ he said.

‘‘What we’re learning is that it is possible to get this disease under control and it is possible to begin resuming normal economic and social life, with a new way of having to do that, and with extreme caution and vigilance.’’

However, some countries in Africa and in central and South America were still seeing ‘‘an upwards trajectory in cases’’ and although they might not appear to have a big problem yet, the availability of tests remained an issue.

More than 3.5 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally and 248,555 have died, according to the worldometers.info/coronavirus website last night.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December.

‘‘We’re in the middle of the fight of our lives — all of us around the world,’’ Ryan said.

‘‘There’s going to be a significant and extended risk until we reach a point where we have a safe and effective vaccine available to all.’’

Ryan said some countries, including New Zealand, China, South Korea and Singapore, had reached what he described as ‘‘a steady state’’ with regard to the spread of Covid19.

Europe and North America were beginning to emerge from ‘‘very intense epidemics’’ and were now trying to navigate a safe exit from severe restrictions on economic and social activities imposed in the past few months.

After months of severe lockdown, people in Italy and Spain were starting to enjoy a little more freedom yesterday.

This showed ‘‘not that the virus can be beaten absolutely, but that we can reach a point where we have enough control over the virus that our social and economic lives can begin again’’, he said.

He reiterated, however, that any government seeking to relax restrictions should do so with extreme caution.