The worst is yet to come. The phrase is from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), and was pronounced on June 29, six months after the WHO received the first notification about the appearance of a new virus that caused atypical pneumonia in Wuhan, China. Six months that left behind more than 10 million confirmed cases, half a million deaths and affected the economies of practically all countries. Just a week later, confirmed cases have increased by more than a million and the deaths add up to an additional 25,000 people.
The worst is yet to come. The WHO Director-General was probably not without cause for drama. The pandemic is raging in the Latin American and Caribbean region, which has gone from 40,000 daily cases in early June to more than 60,000 in early July. With Brazil, Mexico and, far behind, Peru and Chile as the countries that contribute the most confirmed cases. Only Brazil and Mexico accumulated –at the beginning of July– 1.8 million confirmed cases and almost 92,000 deaths. And the numbers grow as both countries begin de-escalation.
It is not surprising that the United States and Brazil, two countries with emblematic “denial” presidencies that represent 7% of the world’s population, have contributed 36% of all confirmed cases and 39% of deaths on the planet.
Nor is it surprising that in the midst of the rise of the epidemic curve they are embarking on contradictory de-escalation processes. In his speech on June 29, and even without specifically naming them, Tedros gravitated a good part of this “worst” in the erratic strategies of coping with the pandemic on the part of these and some other countries.
In other regions of the world, and still far from the figures for the United States and Brazil, confirmed cases are also growing. Asia now exceeds 50,000 new cases a day, driven mainly by India (more than 20,000 cases a day). Russia, on the way to 700,000 accumulated cases, seems to have started a decline in the contagion curve and its declared mortality – as is also the case in Asia – is much lower than those registered in western Europe or the United States. Also in the Persian Gulf the figures are on the rise.
And, as if that were not enough, we all look with great unease at the great African unknown, with transmission figures still low but constantly increasing. Given the scarcity of health resources and the obvious difficulties of confinement in Africa, an expansion of the pandemic on this continent would divert public health and health care resources away from other health problems and other equally serious epidemics.
Europe and winter
Europe also looks askance at the upcoming winter. Despite the fact that – with some exceptions – European countries have controlled the first wave, health services continue to be in constant tension due to successive local outbreaks, some of great magnitude. Whether they will have the capacity to contain a second wave without resorting to generalized confinement is another great unknown.
Live and be able to live. Dr. Tedros did not refer in his speech to the impact of the economic crisis on the health of the populations. But it’s there and it promises to be devastating. Especially serious in a highly indebted Africa that is already facing a significant depreciation of raw materials due to the global fall in industrial production . It will not be easy in developed countries either. Less easy if, as it seems, the struggles between the United States, China, Russia and Europe increase.
The worst is yet to come. Apparently a prophecy that perhaps does not require great prophets. But the phrase was not so much the prediction of an inescapable future as a call to work to avoid or, at least, reduce that “worst”. A call not to lower our guard and to do even more to control the pandemic. The worst is yet to come, but it can be much “less worse” with effort and solidarity. Much less worse the less worse we are.
Salvador Peiró. Director of the Research area in Health Services FISABIO, Fisabio.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.
