Until world health experts develop a vaccine against COVID-19, the virus will continue to stalk the human race for a long time. This is according to the World Health Organization special envoy David Nabarro.
Even if the world manages to come out of the pandemic at present, the virus will continue to create small outbreaks up until a vaccine is made, Nabarro added. The special envoy was speaking on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.
Nabarro said experts are not yet sure whether this novel coronavirus will evolve like the flu with outbreaks happening sporadically. He said countries should each have the capacity to build some kind of "a defensive shield" against the virus. The key to achieving this is if global leaders will cooperate greatly at this time, hinting that this is the one element currently lacking among many of the international governments.
Nabarro's message followed that of WHO's message, warning many countries against the premature lifting of lockdown. At the same time, the International Monetary Fund has also warned about a downturn that has not seen since the Great Depression. The IMF said the dilemma now is that the governments need to save its people from demise while also saving its economy.
The pandemic has destroyed normalities worldwide. Most recently, Catholics were compelled to change the way they celebrated Easter. In the past, this is the time for Catholics to visit churches nationwide or overseas. Families were also compelled to forgo getting together in groups, something that has been practiced in the past for Easter.
If there's one realization echoing across the world, it's that in this pandemic, there is no developing or first world countries. Every country is affected. In fact, if ranked according to the number of people infected, the first worlds are topping the chart so to speak.
As of Sunday night, there are more than 1.8 million people infected of the virus. This is according to the real-time tracker from the Johns Hopkins University.
The United States currently has the highest number of infections with 555,398 Americans battling the disease. Canada now has 24,299 infected people.
Spain is not far behind from the US at 166,831 confirmed cases as of Sunday night. The country has the highest in Europe followed by Italy at 156,363, France at 133,670, Germany at 127,854, the United Kingdom at 85,206. Belgium has 29,647 confirmed cases, the Netherlands has 25,746, and Switzerland has 25,415.
Out of North America and Europe, China remains to have the highest number of cases at 83,134. The Asian country which used to be the epicenter of the disease is now facing the second wave of the virus with the number of imported cases now larger than local transmissions.
Iran is among the highest countries with alarming cases of infections at 71,686, as well as Turkey at 56,956.
