Confusion, complacency driving Covid pandemic: WHO

IANS

Geneva, 13 Apr 2021: Confused and complacent behaviour among people is pushing the coronavirus pandemic to an exponential rise worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

 

Adding to these behaviours is “inconsistency in public health measuresa, the Guardian quoted the WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as saying.

 

Despite 700 million doses of vaccine administered around the world, there have been seven consecutive weeks of rises in infections.

 

The past week saw 4.4 million cases, representing a 9 per cent increase in infections and a 5 per cent rise in deaths, the report said.

 

It can take months before the global situation is brought under control, with concerted measures, Ghebreyesus said.

 

“This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, when we have proven control measures,” Maria van Kerkhove, WHO’s team leader on Covid-19 said.

 

“We are in a critical point of the pandemic right now,” she added.

 

While the pandemic is long from over, the decrease in cases and deaths during the first two months of the year shows that it can be stopped, Ghebreyesus said.

 

But, very few people are taking precautions, and some think “they’re relatively young, it doesn’t matter if they get Covid-19”, he said.

 

On Tuesday, India’s overall Covid-19 caseload increased to 1,36,89,453, currently the second-highest in the world after the US.

 

The country has so far administered 108,533,085. vaccine doses.