The WHO special envoy for COVID-19 criticizes Europe's response to the Corona pandemic, saying the countries failed to take advantage of a calm in the summer to prepare for the next wave.
World Health Organization (WHO) Special Envoy for COVID-19 David Nabarro told the Solothurner Zeitung in Switzerland that Europe is likely to see a third wave of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in early 2021 before a vaccine.
"They lost the construction of the necessary infrastructure during the summer months after putting the first wave under control," Nabarro said.
"Now we have the second wave. "If they do not build the necessary infrastructure, we will have a third wave early next year."
He also said that Europe could learn a lot from Asian countries. "The response to the virus must be strong and determined," he said.
"Especially in the beginning, when the virus is spreading very slowly in different communities. "If you react without much effort, the problem will get worse very quickly."
For a while, Europe enjoyed reducing the number of infections over the summer, but now the infections are rising again. Germany, with a population of 84 million, had its case increase by 14,000 on Sunday. In contrast, Japan's 120 million population had only 2,596 new cases on Saturday. South Korea’s population of 51 million reported only 386 new cases on the same day and there have been only about 30,700 confirmed cases in total since the pandemic began.
A big problem, Nabarro added, is that very few political decision-makers have realized that the virus is spreading exponentially rather than arithmetically. "Exponential means that numbers can increase 8 times a week, 40 times in two weeks, 300 times in three weeks, over 1000 times in four weeks, and so on," he said.
In Asia, meanwhile, the numbers are relatively low because "people are fully engaged, they adapt behaviors that make it difficult for the virus," Nabarro said.
"They keep their distance, wear masks, isolate themselves when they are sick, wash their hands and surfaces. "They protect the most vulnerable groups." Nabarro also said that Asia did not lift the restrictions prematurely. "You have to wait until the case numbers are low and stay low," he said. "Europe's response was incomplete."
He also praised the communication between the authorities in Asia and Europe. "They just have a message: If we want our economy to be strong and we want to maintain our freedoms, we all need to stick to a few basic things."
