MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th March, 2020) Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme, said on Monday that countries across the globe should effectively and wisely use time brought by "stay at home" measures to suppress COVID-19 during its peak.
"So the focusing on what we do now is absolutely critical to make sure we use that time wisely, we use that time effectively so that once we do reach that peak we continue to push and suppress that virus down as quickly as possible, but still be ready to find additional cases should they show up," Van Kerkhove said during a daily briefing, adding that "stay at home" and social distancing measures bought the international community some time.
Van Kerkhove also noted that "the number of countries in Asia" managed to slow down the spread of the virus.
"So we need to focus on the now. We need to use our time wisely and that is to aggressively find this virus and care for our patients," the WHO's technical lead said.
China, South Korea and Japan are reporting a relatively lower number of cases in late March. WHO has previously said that Europe was a new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
