GENEVA: The number of coronavirus infections around the world hit 13 million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, climbing by a million in just five days.
The pandemic has now killed more than half a million people in six-and-a-half months, and World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there would be no return to the ‘old normal’ for the foreseeable future, especially if preventive measures were neglected.
‘Let me be blunt, too many countries are headed in the wrong direction, the virus remains public enemy number one,’ he told a virtual briefing from WHO headquarters in Geneva.
If basics are not followed, the only way this pandemic is go, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. But it does not have to be this way.’ ❑
