AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool
In the annual lull that often seems to fall over the news cycle the weeks of Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, one of two things happen in the world of journalism either important stories are lost in the cracks or normally unimportant stories gain more exposure than they deserve. I think this one falls into the latter category, but maybe not for the reason many people would expect.
On Sunday, the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) celebrated a new, progressive holiday, which it’s calling the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.
TORONTO Experts say that as bad as the novel coronavirus pandemic has been, worse outbreaks may be coming. At the final World Health Organization (WHO) press conference on COVID-19 in 2020, Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO emergencies program, called the current pandemic a wake-up call on emergency preparedness. It may come as a shock to people that this pandemic has been very severe it s spread around the world extremely quickly, it s affected every corner of this planet but this is not necessarily the big one, Ryan said. Ryan noted that while SARS-CoV-2 is very transmissible and has killed many, its rate of fatality is reasonably low in comparison to other emerging diseases.
NEW YORK : The “fragile” world needs to get its act together and honor those who have died by getting better at fighting COVID-19 because “the next pandemic may be more severe,” Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergencies Program, said on Monday.
In the WHO’s final COVID-19 press conference of the year, attended by Arab News, he and other senior officials warned that the virus is “not necessarily the big one.”
It is not just the virus, however, that is killing people, said Ryan. “It’s underprivilege. It’s lack of access. It’s years and years of living with health conditions that haven’t been properly managed because of the color of your skin, your ethnicity or your social group,” he added. “This is still a deeply unfair, deeply inequitable world.”
Monday, December 28, 2020, 09:00 GMT+7
A medical worker performs a COVID-19 test at the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases. Photo: Duyen Phan / Tuoi Tre
Read what is in the news today:
Politics The United Nations General Assembly approved Vietnam’s initiative with a resolution proclaiming December 27 as the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc delivered a message on the day.
Society A 60-year-old man repatriated from the U.S. was confirmed the latest case of COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing Vietnam s patient tally to 1,441, with 1,303 recoveries and 35 virus-related deaths. A fire broke out at a house down Alley 173 on Khuong Viet Street in Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday morning, killing one woman.