Date:2020-7-28 11:26:45 Clicks:792 【Font Size:
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Governments should react quickly and communicate transparently to ensure small numbers of COVID-19 cases and clusters don't "reignite sustained and efficient community transmission", said a senior expert of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.
Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, made the appeal when talking about the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases worldwide.
Countries such as Japan and Australia that have had contained the virus are experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. Japan has reported 4,740 newly confirmed cases to WHO in the past seven days. "When the measures to suppress the virus are lifted, the virus returns," Ryan noted.
Some of the resurgences have started from long-term care facilities such as nursing homes, others were happening in places like nightclubs, where people come together and spend a prolonged period of time, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies Program.
Meanwhile, Ryan said that in order to efficiently control the resurgence, countries need to have "consistent, clear, sustained interventions," and to get the interventions down to the community level. It is equally important that governments be "honest and trustful" and "communicate reality on the ground" to the public.
Latest numbers from WHO show that globally there have been more than 16 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 646,000 deaths as of Monday.