In the next few weeks, the emergence of coronavirus will mark its first anniversary, and even passing one complete year in this pandemic, there is no sign of it ending anytime soon. The World Health Organization’s Director for Europe Dr. Hans Kluge has confirmed that COVID-19 cases in Europe have exceeded 10 million ever since this pandemic started. He was
The director shared that statistical reports from 54 countries of Europe have set a new weekly record where 1.5 million COVID-19 cases were reported in one week. This statement was made when he was meeting the health ministers from different European countries.
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He said that the rate of hospitalization has increased to an incredibly high level and deaths have increased by 30% after these cases were reported last week. With this weekly increase, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Europe has crossed 10 million.
Kluge says this time, it is probably Europe which is the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic which is highly concerning.
Although the diagnostic testing systems are upgraded to identify the new cases and present a better picture of coronavirus transmission. But these positive cases have reached a new level now.
Not to forget, the World Health Organization (WHO) adds central Asian countries and Russia in their categorization of the European region. So the COVID-19 cases from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan are also included in this COVID-19 cases in Europe toll.
While Germany and France are re-defining and approving the public restrictions to control the viral spread, Kluge finds these nation-wide lockdowns to probably be the last hope to control new cases. He acknowledged the substantial damage that it a lockdown can do to an economy, social issues, and mental health of people but without it, saving human lives is impossible.
He says that instead of considering it as a threat to the national economy, the countries should take this nation-wide lockdown as an opportunity to scale up their game and improve their healthcare systems, diagnostic programs, and contact tracing plans to prevent new clusters cases.
Despite these growing numbers of COVID-19 cases in Europe, countries have failed to upgrade their coronavirus response. Many of these countries spent weeks or even months in lockdown but still, they seem not ready to tackle this spike in cases.
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Dr. Kulge has suggested government officials, and politicians to use scientific help while speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, the British government completely ignored the advice brought forward by the scientific advisers on imposing a nation-wide lockdown last month. They found a nation-wide lockdown better and more fruitful than localized restrictions and rules which have only a little effect on the viral resurgence.
But the British Government rejected this idea and imposed the local restrictions only. Now the scientific advisors have estimated that covid-19 cases in the UK have increased to 96000 per day showing that the cases are doubling after a week.
French government changed the quarantine period from 14 to 7 days only after watching that no one is following that longer period. There was absolutely no scientific logic for making this change. Dr. Kulge says that if all countries kept on taking these steps without estimating the consequences, the results are going to be disastrous.
