WHO fears a new wave of coronavirus cases in the northern hemisphere with the arrival of the cold

Cases of coronavirus, which last week increased globally after two months of declines, could continue to rise especially in the northern hemisphere with the arrival of the cold months, the head of the World Health Organization’s anticovid technical unit warned today (WHO), Maria Van Kerkhove.

“People spend more time indoors, sometimes in rooms that are not properly ventilated … we have the Delta variant, of which we have already identified 30 subvariants, and the pandemic will continue”, predicted Van Kerkhove in the weekly press conference that he organizes the WHO on COVID-19.

Despite this, the American expert stressed that “transmission can be lowered” not only with vaccines but also with other tools that were previously available, such as distance maintenance, masks, hand hygiene or not attending large mass events.

“We have weapons at hand to save lives and reduce transmission,” said Van Kerkhove, who assured that “the more we use them, the closer we will be to ending the pandemic.”

The global cases of COVID-19 They increased 4% last week after almost two months of declines, mainly due to new waves of infections in European countries such as the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey or Ukraine.

The WHO reported 2.9 million infections between October 18 and 24, of which more than half, 1.6 million, were registered in Europe.