WHO: Premature Lifting Of Covid Restrictions Would be 'Epidemiological Stupidity'

The World Health Organization has opposed any policy that allows coronavirus to spread unrestrictedly, calling such a move "epidemiological stupidity."

However, a senior member of the organization said that he did not believe Boris Johnson was actively pushing such a strategy in the U.K.

The WHO's Mike Ryan slammed the idea of allowing coronavirus to spread freely after a BBC journalist said that the U.K. government had opted to do so by opening society up July 19 and lifting nearly all legal restrictions related to the virus.

According to the journalist, the government believed that having an exit wave of cases in August rather than September would be preferable, and that it was "gambling on cases going up sharply and then falling back down pretty sharply."

"I'm not aware that's the logic driving our colleagues in the UK, I suspect it's not," Ryan, the WHO's emergencies program head, said. "I would like to verify that's the logic."

"The logic of 'more people being infected is better', is logic that has proven its moral emptiness and its epidemiological stupidity."

Johnson faces criticism for planning to get rid of Covid restrictions July 19.

Labor leader Keir Starmer warned of a "summer of chaos and confusion" as a result of the Prime Minister's "reckless" proposal.

Johnson was accused in April of telling advisers that he would rather let the virus "rip" than enforce a second lockdown.

Ryan also cautioned countries to exercise extreme caution while relaxing restrictions in order "not to lose the gains you've made."

While each country must make its own decision, he believes that individuals, even the unvaccinated, must take responsibility for safeguarding themselves and others and preventing hospitals from being overrun by another pandemic wave.

"The idea that everyone is protected, and it's 'Kumbaya' and everything goes back to normal, I think right now is a very dangerous assumption anywhere in the world, and it's still a dangerous assumption in the European environment," Ryan told reporters from Geneva.

"We would ask governments at this moment not to lose the gains you've made."