“We are going into a second year of this, it could even be tougher given the transmission dynamics and some of the issues that we are seeing,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies official, said during an event on social media. The worldwide death toll is approaching 2 million people since the pandemic began, with 91.5 million people infected. That includes home-office requirements and store closures in Switzerland, an extended Italian COVID-19 state of emergency, and German efforts to further reduce contacts between people blamed for failed efforts, so far, to get the coronavirus under control. “I worry that we will remain in this pattern of peak and trough and peak and trough, and we can do better,” Van Kerkhove said. She called for maintaining physical distancing, adding: “The further, the better...but make sure that you keep that distance from people outside your immediate household.”

Source: bd News24 January 13, 2021 18:11 UTC