WHO urges people to 'move your bodies' through COVID-19, stresses on 'staying active'

The COVID-19 pandemic is no excuse for not exercising or moving, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned, stating the risk of causing another health-related pandemic. In an update of its physical activity guidelines, the UN health agency stressed that 'exercise is vital' to physical and mental health and sedentary behaviour could have serious repercussions on an individual’s health. Later, it also posted a video on Twitter, showcasing various activities people could do to keep fit.

Meanwhile, WHO highlighted that even before the pandemic, the majority of youth and many adults were not indulging in enough exercise. Asking people to “move their bodies,” WHO stressed that physical activities could avert as many as five million deaths each year.

"WHO urges everyone to continue to stay active through the Covid-19 pandemic. If we do not remain active, we run the risk of creating another pandemic of ill-health as a result of sedentary behaviour," the agency's head of health promotion Ruediger Krech said at a press meet. 

COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc

This comes as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc's across the world. In a report, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that Europe has remained the largest global contributor to the new COVID-19 cases and death in the past week. In its weekly report, the UN health agency stressed that the European region accounted for over 44 per cent of new global cases and 49 per cent of new COVID-19 deaths in the past week. Europe as per WHO comprises of 53 nations, of which Russia (transcontinental) and Turkey are the largest by population. 

Read: Europe Was Largest Contributor To New COVID-19 Cases In Past Week: WHO

Read: 'Extremely Important': WHO Says Foreign Experts Will Visit China To Probe COVID-19 Origin

The continent has reported 16,306,568 cases till now, despite major countries including the UK, France imposing stricter measure to curb the spread of infection. According to the latest tally by John Hopkins University, a total of 372,031 people have died in Europe till now. Adding to that, the WHO report revealed that as many as 1.77 million cases and 32,684 fatalities out of the total were reported just last week.

Read: Europe Was Largest Contributor To New COVID-19 Cases In Past Week: WHO

 Read: Going 'backward In Time': Israeli Scientists Discover Way To Reverse Ageing By 25 Years

Representative image/Pixabey