World Health Organization’s (WHO) top emergency expert, Mike Ryan on Monday said that Europe and North America should follow the example of Asian countries regarding the anti-COVID measures including contact tracing and isolating potential patients.
The Asian populations had shown ‘higher levels of trust’ in their governments who had kept up measures longer. Ryan added.
‘In other words, they ran through the finish line and beyond and they kept running because they knew the race wasn’t over, that finish line was false. Too many countries have put an imaginary finishing line and when they cross this may have decelerated some of their activities,’ Reuters quoted the WHO expert as saying.
Another update regarding the coronavirus outbreak includes recent Oxford University findings that state that young healthy adults with COVID-19, who do not require hospitalisation still stand at risk for long-term health problems.
The study was conducted on 201 recovering patients in the UK, with an average age of 44. More than 90 per cent did not have risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease. Of the total, 18% had been sick enough to be hospitalised.
The researchers say their study, posted on Friday on the website medRxiv ahead of peer review, cannot prove the virus caused these later issues, however, it does suggest that long-term monitoring of organ function will be necessary even in low-risk patients, reported the media.
