The World Health Organization warned world leaders Wednesday that there can be “no going back to business as usual” following the coronavirus pandemic, which has upended economies and wreaked havoc on nearly every country across the globe.
“This virus likes to find opportunities to spread and if these lockdown measures are lifted too quickly, the virus can take off,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s lead scientist on Covid-19, said during a press conference at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “The only way to control and suppress this virus, this Covid-19, is to actually find [cases], quarantine those contacts, isolate the cases and it will be brought under control.”
The coronavirus has infected more than 3.6 million people worldwide and has killed at least 257,818 since it emerged in Wuhan, China over four months ago, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom G