If European countries do not build the necessary infrastructure now, then in early 2021 they are threatened with the third wave of COVID-19. This was warned by the special envoy of the World Health Organization (WHO) David Nabarro, RIA Novosti reports.
According to him, Europe managed to take control of the first wave of coronavirus, but it could not prevent the second. “They missed the opportunity to build the necessary infrastructure in the summer months,” Nabarro explained.
The WHO special envoy also noted that Western European countries were faced with the task of taking the virus under control again, without resorting to a lockdown, for which a “high price” has to be paid.
Earlier, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the number of people infected with coronavirus in October exceeded the figures for the first six months of the pandemic. “Hospitals and intensive care units continue to fill up throughout Europe and North America,” he said.
An outbreak of COVID-19 pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus was first recorded in December 2019 in Wuhan. On March 11, WHO announced that the situation could be characterized as a pandemic. According to the latest data, more than 57 million people are infected worldwide.
