MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th July, 2020) Some countries that have already passed the first peak of the coronavirus pandemic now see resurgence in certain geographic areas and settings, which creates a mixed "coronavirus picture" across the globe, Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead of COVID-19 response at the World Health Organization (WHO), said on Monday.
"There's a number of countries that are really seeing intense transmission. Other countries, which have already passed through their first peak, many of them are keeping transmission low with the public health infrastructure and all of the tools that they've put in place to find, test, isolate, care for cases, contact trace. They're having success at keeping that transmission low. In some of those countries, they're starting to see a resurgence, and they're starting to see resurgence in particular areas. They're seeing clusters of cases, and outbreaks, and pockets of clusters, of cases in certain geographic areas or in areas that are associated with certain types of industries, like we've seen some outbreaks that are happening with regards to nightclubs," Van Kerkhove told a virtual press briefing.
The countries' determination to resolutely counter the resurgence through breaking transmission chains inspires optimism, the WHO official noted.
"The good news and the hope that we see is that in many of those ... situations countries are once again applying this whole-government approach and these really strong aggressive actions in terms of finding these cases, very quickly isolating them, carrying out contact tracing so that we break the chains of transmission," Van Kerkhove said.
Amid this "mixed picture", countries that are now going through the intense transmission phase are having "a very difficult time," but are still able to overcome it, Van Kerkhove concluded.
