{"id":253014,"date":"2020-04-23T21:36:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T01:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=253014"},"modified":"2020-04-23T21:36:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T01:36:02","slug":"covid-19-will-be-around-a-long-time-who-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/04\/23\/covid-19-will-be-around-a-long-time-who-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19 will be around a long time: WHO chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
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He said most countries are in the early stages of Covid-19 but some that were affected early are now seeing a resurgence in cases. (File photo: Martin Sanchez\/Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GENEVA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 People with stay-at-home orders are understandably frustrated by weeks of confinement, but coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will be around for a long time and one of the greatest dangers is complacency, World Health Organization (WHO) chief warned Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ comments came during a video press conference from WHO headquarters where he noted the coronavirus in Western Europe appears to be stable or declining.<\/p>\n

In Africa, Central and South America and Eastern Europe where numbers are low, there are worrying upward trends, said Tedros.<\/p>\n

He said most countries are in the early stages of Covid-19 but some that were affected early are now seeing a resurgence in cases.<\/p>\n

“Make no mistake: we have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time,” said Tedros. “There’s no question that stay-at-home orders and other physical distancing measures have successfully suppressed transmission in many countries. But this virus remains extremely dangerous.”<\/p>\n

He said early evidence suggests most of the world’s population remains susceptible.<\/p>\n

“That means epidemics can easily re-ignite,” said Tedros.<\/p>\n

Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program Mike Ryan said there has to be “two-way communication and there is no confusion in the communication” from authorities in getting their message across.<\/p>\n

Tedros responded to calls by some American politicians for his resignation after US President Donald Trump accused him of being China-centric and ordered Washington stop funding the WHO.<\/p>\n

He indicated he would not resign without directly answering.<\/p>\n

“I hope that the freezing of the funding will be reconsidered and that the US will once again support WHO,” said Tedros. “Our responsibility is saving lives, and I will focus on changing this organization for good, but not only that, especially now focusing on the pandemic and saving lives. That’s my focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 2.62 million cases have been reported worldwide as deaths have surpassed the 182,000 mark, according to data compiled by the US-based Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 707,000 patients have recovered.\u00a0(Anadolu)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENEVA\u00a0\u2013 People with stay-at-home orders are understandably frustrated by weeks of confinement, but coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will be around for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":251325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-anadolu","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253014"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253016,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253014\/revisions\/253016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}