The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a video marking the first Sunday of International Epidemic Preparedness Day “history tells us that this will not be the last pandemic and that the epidemics are a fact of life. “
What it says: Tedros said responses to these outbreaks had been “dangerously short-sighted,” throwing money at the problem without preparing for the next one.
“With investments in public health, backed by a health approach from all governments, from across society, we can ensure that our children and their children inherit a safer, more resilient and more sustainable world.”
- “The pandemic has highlighted the close links between human, animal and planetary health,” the WHO director-general added.
- “Any effort to improve human health is doomed unless they address the critical human-animal interface and the existential threat of climate change that makes our land less habitable.”
By numbers: Nearly 332,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and about 19 million have tested positive, according to Johns Hopkins.
- Globally, nearly 1.8 million people have died from the virus and more than 80.3 million have tested positive.
The big picture: Several countries have reported cases of a new strain of COVID-19 first detected in England, one of many countries that has imposed restrictions on citizens in order to curb peak cases.