COVID-19 outbreak is serious but 'we need to be ready for more severe’ pandemics: WHO
The novel coronavirus has had a catastrophic impact around the globe, but World Health Organization (WHO) warned that “worse pandemics” could happen in future.
- World News
- 2 min read
The novel coronavirus has had a catastrophic impact around the globe, but the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that “worse pandemics” could happen in future. Speaking at a recent press briefing WHO emergencies Chief Michael Ryan urged the global communities to take “preparedness” seriously. This comes just two days after the UN agency marked the first-ever International day of pandemic preparedness, highlighting the lessons learnt from the ongoing health crisis.
The coronavirus crisis which began a year ago in the Chinese city of Wuhan has now spiralled to infect over 81,278, 435 people and kill 1,774,395 out of them, as per latest tally by John Hopkins University. However, terming it as a “wakeup call”, Ryan warned that it was “not necessarily” a big one. Stressing that the fatality rate of COVID-19 is “reasonably low” in comparison to other diseases, he warned that people to need to prepare for “something more severe” in the future.
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COVID 'spread extremely quickly'
“This pandemic has been very severe. It has spread around the world extremely quickly and it has affected every corner of this planet, but this is not necessarily the big one," he said.
Doubling down on Ryan’s opinion, WHO senior advisor Bruce Aylward also cautioned that while the world has made significant progress to tackle the coronavirus Crisis, it still remained far from being ready to ward off future crisis. "We are into second and third waves of this virus and we are still not prepared to deal with and manage those. So while we are better prepared... we are not fully prepared for this one, let alone the next one,” he asserted.
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Meanwhile, WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that coronavirus pandemic won't be the last one and attempts to improve human health are doomed without tackling the two-pronged issue of climate change and animal welfare. “In the past 12 months, lives and livelihoods have been turned upside down by #COVID19. But over the years WHO and our partners have warned that the world is not prepared for a pandemic,” he said.