Last Friday the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the international risk of spreading the new coronavirus has risen from ‘high’ to ‘very high’. This change in the alert level is mainly due to the fact that cases of contagion outside China continue to increase, and various countries are having difficulties to contain the epidemic of the virus.
Both the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) and the director of the WHO have stressed that the decision should not generate panic, “ We still have the possibility of containing this virus, if energetic measures are taken to detect cases early. , isolate and care for patients and trace contacts. There are different settings in different countries, and different settings within the same country, ”added Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, the WHO director.
In two months, the COVID-19 disease has exceeded 89,000 cases in more than 60 countries around the globe, and it is precisely because of its high transmissibility that it has been decided to raise the alert. And, although we are still in the epidemic situation, the same would happen in the event that the health authorities began to speak of a pandemic. As the professor of Microbiology at the University of Navarra, Ignacio López-Goñi, well expresses in an article published today in The Conversation : “ A pandemic implies a sustained, efficient and continuous transmission of the disease simultaneously in more than three geographical regions different. Perhaps we are already in that phase, but that is not synonymous with death, since the term does not refer to the lethality of the pathogen but to its transmissibility and geographical extension ”.
The highest authority of the WHO has also recalled that most cases can still be traced to known contacts, that is, until now there is no evidence that the virus is spreading freely between communities, but it is true that the probabilities that the situation gets out of control are getting higher. “We know that containment is possible, but the window of opportunity is narrowing.”
The good news: China and other Asian countries are reporting fewer new cases each day, telling us that they are succeeding in containing cases. The key is to act quickly and aggressively, when the first infections appear.
This is no time for panic or stigmata
The decision to raise the alert from ‘high’ to ‘very high’ should not generate panic, but rather alert countries to prepare as they should. ” This is not a moment of panic, it is time to be prepared, fully prepared, ” said António Guterres, UN Secretary General. “As the director general of the WHO said ‘the greatest enemy at the moment is not the virus, it is fear, rumors and stigma.’ Now is the time for all governments to step forward and do everything possible to contain the disease, and to do so without stigmatization, respecting human rights ”.
