We can only get out of the woods together

It’s become the mantra of our days — When will it end? Months into the COVID-19 pandemic, not only are individuals tired of the endless social distancing, but businesses and governments all over the world are worried about the financial costs and can’t wait for a return to normalcy.

If the decisions of some countries to reopen their economies looked adventurous given they had not yet flattened the curve of infections, the situation in China, Beijing in particular, made the decision to “restart” appear judicious.

Yet after consecutive weeks of zero new infections being reported, the sudden, sizable resurgence of local infections in Beijing should be a warning to all, within and without this country, that the talk about a coronavirus “comeback”, “second wave”, “phase 2” — whatever one wants to call it — is not just crying wolf.

If the virus can find a way to make a comeback in the Chinese capital, which had adopted some of the strictest restrictions on people’s mobility at the peak of the pandemic, there is little doubt it will be able to do so in places that are much less vigilant or seemingly more willing to pay the cost in human lives.

What has happened in Beijing offers plenty of lessons, for not only China but also the rest of the world. But those otherwise life-saving lessons are likely to remain unlearned amid a blame game that has focused singularly on apportioning responsibility for what went wrong initially and how the virus was unleashed.

The discourse over the pandemic has gone astray to such an extent that mud-slinging has taken the place of badly needed discussion about how countries can work together to control the spread of the virus, let alone how to best prepare for the second wave that appears all too likely.

Few in the West seem inclined to listen to the World Health Organization and its current chief these days. But if they let Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ warning against “a divided world” and “politicization of the pandemic” go in one ear and out the other, his organization’s observation that the pandemic is entering a “new and dangerous phase” of “worsening” and his call for “extreme vigilance” should not go unheeded.

The disease has killed more than 465,000 people, infected over 9 million, and taken a back-breaking economic toll worldwide. More important, even as a global consensus is emerging that there will be a second wave, the first is far from over.

As WHO regional director for Europe Hans Henri Kluge said, “We are not out of the woods,” and preparations for the autumn are “a priority now”.

The virus will grab any chance to spread it can get. Along with the spate of new infections in Beijing, there have been new clusters reported in the Republic of Korea and Germany recently and an upsurge in new infections in states that reopened early in the United States.

The warnings are there, not only that countries need to maintain their vigilance, but also that they should be fighting it together. If they don’t, it’s probably pointless to ask when will it end.