The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned governments around the world not to relax COVID-19 restrictions prematurely, saying that countries that do so may pay a heavy price for rushing to return to normal.

At a press conference on Monday, Mike Ryan, a top emergency expert at the United Nations health agency, said that a new wave of infections may be coming, noting that for most parts of the world, the pandemic has just begun.

“In all countries in the Americas, we still have nearly 1 million cases every week,” he said. “It’s the same in Europe… there are 500,000 cases every week. This hasn’t gone away,” Ryan added. “It’s not over yet.”

Last week, the WHO Director for Africa Warned The “speed and scale” of the third wave of the African continent “we have never seen it before.”

“Compared with every four weeks at the beginning of the second wave, COVID-19 cases double every three weeks,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said at a briefing on Thursday.

At the same time, in Russia, the number of deaths from the coronavirus on Tuesday reached a new high, and the number of deaths reported by the authorities increased by 737. In the past month, the number of daily confirmed infections has more than doubled, from about 9,000 in early June to more than 23,000 this week.

These warnings came at a time of renewed concerns about the new coronavirus Delta variant, First discovered in India in April. This new strain, considered the most contagious variant to date, has now spread to nearly 100 countries around the world.

Experts say that more than 80% of a country’s population needs to be vaccinated to control it-even for countries with advanced vaccination programs, this is a challenging goal. This change is reflected in more than 90% of all new infections in the UK and about 30% in the United States.

Laboratory tests show that it is Stronger resistance to vaccines Compared with other forms of coronavirus. However, there is evidence that the available jabs can maintain important efficacy after two doses.

Back to normal

On the same day the World Health Organization issued a warning, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Announce Most COVID-19 restrictions in the country will be lifted within two weeks.

Johnson said in an interview with reporters: “If we can’t reopen our society in the next few weeks, we will be helped by summer and school holidays, then we should ask ourselves when will we get back to normal.” “on Monday.

The Prime Minister admitted that there will be more infections, but people need to learn to coexist with the virus.

However, given the proliferation of Delta variants and the 74% increase in the number of infections last week alone, the British Medical Association (BMA) expressed concern about lifting all coronavirus-related restrictions on July 19.

BMA Chairman Chaand Nagpaul told Sunrise Radio on Sunday that the government should continue to take “wise targeted coronavirus measures” and act on “data rather than date” when making decisions to protect people’s lives.

At the same time, after the country’s Institute of Public Health announced that these five countries are no longer “regions of concern”, Germany has begun to relax restrictions on travelers from India, Nepal, Portugal, Russia and the United Kingdom, including more Loose isolation regulations.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that once vaccines are available to everyone, Germany should remove all remaining social and economic restrictions related to the coronavirus.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, about 56.5% of people in Germany have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and nearly 39% have been fully vaccinated.

Maas told the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “When everyone in Germany receives a vaccine offer, there are no longer any legal or political reasons for restrictions.” He said that this should happen sometime in August.

In Canada, the authorities began to relax restrictions on travel in and out of the United States on Monday, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that plans to completely reopen the border will be announced in the coming weeks.

“I remember last summer, we thought everything was fine, we relaxed, we arrived in September and October, and we ran into huge troubles,” said Ryan, a senior adviser to the WHO.

“I think this is where we are going, but this time there is a more communicative variant,” he added.