The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) says territories in the region must “think twice” about the wholesale relaxation of social distancing measures in order to bolster faltering economies, as doing so could erase all the gains made in controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus over the past two months.
We must be careful; my advice is do not open too fast or you risk a resurgence of COVID-19 that could erase the advantage gained over the past few months,” PAHO Director Dr Carissa Etienne cautioned during a virtual briefing yesterday from Washington, DC, United States.
The pandemic has forced us to address three emergencies: health, social and economic,” Dr Etienne said, noting “we need to address those three at the same time”.
It is a combination that works as long as you adapt it to each setting and it is a core strategy of many countries that have successfully controlled transmission,” the PAHO director pointed out.
In the past week alone there were 732,000 new cases globally with more than 250,000 new cases in Latin American countries, prompting PAHO last week to declare the region as the new epicentre.
