WHO chief hopes coronavirus pandemic will last less than two years

By Stephanie Nebehay

 

FILE PHOTO: World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference organized by Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva Switzerland July 3, 2020. Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS

 

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu and last less than two years, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday, if the world unites and succeeds in finding a vaccine.

 

The WHO has always been cautious about giving estimates on how quickly the pandemic can be dealt with while there is no proven vaccine.

 

Tedros said the 1918 Spanish flu "took two years to stop".

 

"And in our situation now with more technology, and of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading, it can move fast because we are more connected now," he told a briefing in Geneva.

 

"But at the same time we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it. So we have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology.

 

"So we hope to finish this pandemic (in) less than two years."

 

He urged "national unity" and "global solidarity".

 

"That is really key with utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccine."

 

More than 22.81 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally since it was first identified in China last year and 793,382 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Michael Shields and Jo Mason; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-08-22

 

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Is this the same idiot that said it wasn't a pandemic  - until it was ! Resign you useless clown

Hope? What a ????

40 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

WHO chief hopes coronavirus pandemic will last less than two years

good thing the world economy or lack thereof will destroy us long before that. 

I'm giving it a few more months tops.

I think they have already lost their standing and respect on the world platform with the handling of this.

The WHO is an advisory body only as political decisions come from the nation states who institute whatever restrictions they deem necessary to deal with the Big Corona.

 

As it stands the three major failures in this regard are the UK,US and Brazil who can blame no-one but themselves for their antics.

 

I'll take the over: Covid-19 will never go away.  It's too highly infectious.  Immunity from infection is unlikely to persist more than a few months, like other coronaviruses.  And a vaccine is unlikely.  In the past twenty-five years only seven new vaccines have been developed, none of which work against any coronavirus.  

An inflammatory post has been removed.  Please keep your remarks civil.  

 

1 hour ago, Odysseus123 said:

The WHO is an advisory body only as political decisions come from the nation states who institute whatever restrictions they deem necessary to deal with the Big Corona.

 

As it stands the three major failures in this regard are the UK,US and Brazil who can blame no-one but themselves for their antics.

 

Nonsense.  

 

The WHO failed miserably early on by saying travel restrictions were not necessary.

 

Many other countries are having trouble controlling COVID after doing well at first (Vietnam, Singapore for example).

 

The only "failure" country is China. They gave it to the world either by incompetence or design. The WHO does their bidding.

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by ExpatOK

Hope springs eternal, my dear Mister Tedros. If you and your cronies had done your job properly, hope wouldn't be all that we have now.

 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by Caldera

2 years ?  people with no income will become more animal like to get what they need

At last I read of someone being plausible and realistic.

 

I have gotten sick and tired of all these so-called experts (like Trump, telling us the virus is going to 'vanish in April') and acting as though they know what will happen in the future. We need more words like 'hope' instead of this stupid 'forecast' from people who are pretending to know what is going to happen. No one knows what is going to happen so how about a bit of humility from these so called experts.

14 minutes ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

2 years ?  people with no income will become more animal like to get what they need

So what do you propose to do about it? Kill all the poor people?

The virus will take the virus's time, shortened perhaps if an effective vaccine or treatment emerges from the research. 

Just reading through the comments.....it is clear too me that propagandaand scapegoating works very, very effectively on many people.

Now there's a statement befitting his position, eh?

Both the WHO and the Chinese government made mistakes in the early stages of the epidemic.  However, the South Koreans and Taiwanese were surveiling China for just the kind of epidemic outbreak that Covid represents and pointedly did not believe the misrepresentations of WHO and China early on.  Instead, they started putting into effect their pandemic plans.  In the case of S. Korea, that meant ramping up test production on Dec. 31, 2019 which soon enabled them to have the most extensive program of testing, isolating, and tracing contacts.  Taiwan cut flights from China and kicked off the same program, although they did not test as widely as S. Korea.  Both countries were among the most successful in the world and remain so even though they never locked down their economies.  So, the errors of the WHO and the Chinese government did not prevent capable governments from succeeding in suppressing the virus with very low death rates.

 

By contrast, in 2017 Trump cut the CDC office in Beijing from 47 staff members to 14 and also cut the staffs of other US agencies in China.  The Beijing office of the the CDC had the main responsibility of surveiling outbreaks in China.  It is clear to me that all of the deaths in the US above a per capita rate comparable to S. Korea or Taiwan are entirely the responsibility of Trump and the Republicans in Congress.

If restrictions and the current state of "the new normal" also last 2 years, I predict some very ugly events happening, even in the most "civilised" countries. 

Unbelievable how "the world" is not able to see the disproportionate measures taken to contain a virus with such a small Infection Fatality Rate.

5 hours ago, cmarshall said:

I'll take the over: Covid-19 will never go away.  It's too highly infectious.  Immunity from infection is unlikely to persist more than a few months, like other coronaviruses.  And a vaccine is unlikely.  In the past twenty-five years only seven new vaccines have been developed, none of which work against any coronavirus.  

You may be right.  My own bet is that they will come up with something that is about as effective as the seasonal flu vaccine.  You will still get infected but the symptoms will be less severe.  

When virus first jumps to new species, it would probably be very deadly, but subsequent mutations would lead to virus that is more adapted to host, for its own survival. So it is my belief that the virus would cause less death and immediate damage in the future, as it's more adapted to humans, but possibly never go away, as corona viruses are very infectious and very unstable.

 

That also makes me quite unsure whether vaccine would really be all that effective, as the time taken to produce and test vaccines would be so long the virus structure vaccine attacks may have changed many times over. Scientists say they target parts that are least likely to mutate, but that's just "least likely", meaning there's still possibility it would, rendering vaccines useless.

So, China will have destroyed ALL world economies for 3 years with another of their pandemics - if anyone does not think they will do the same again they are very gullible. 

10 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

So, China will have destroyed ALL world economies for 3 years with another of their pandemics - if anyone does not think they will do the same again they are very gullible. 

Doctor who fled China to reveal virus truth

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/doctor-who-fled-china-to-reveal-virus-truth/news-story/0ebf5993691da3ffb612438ecf8bd6c3

5 hours ago, ExpatOK said:

Nonsense.  

 

The WHO failed miserably early on by saying travel restrictions were not necessary.

 

Many other countries are having trouble controlling COVID after doing well at first (Vietnam, Singapore for example).

 

The only "failure" country is China. They gave it to the world either by incompetence or design. The WHO does their bidding.

Well said.

Every single person should watch his interview because it is shocking. He could not answer one single question put to him. Then look at his history. He got it because he is China's  man. We "UK" should follow America and pull out. China has really shown it's true evil. I for one will not buy anything made there. 

7 hours ago, cmarshall said:

I'll take the over: Covid-19 will never go away.  It's too highly infectious.  Immunity from infection is unlikely to persist more than a few months, like other coronaviruses.  And a vaccine is unlikely.  In the past twenty-five years only seven new vaccines have been developed, none of which work against any coronavirus.  

Actually there have been a few studies lately (this August)that show immunity will likely last for years, a vaccine will likely work, if developed, and that even people who have no antibodies and mild or asymptomatic cases will likely have long term immunity based on T-Cell and B-cell memory. Please watch the entirety of this video; I watched it last night it was very informative and encouraging. We have been grossly misinformed by overly cautious statements by health care officials who are leading people to believe that this virus doesn't act like any other viruses of it's ilk.

 

First study discussed was from the University of Washington based on an outbreak on a fishing vessel in which 104 people out of 122 were infected (1 with a serious case-slightly less than 1% serious). Three on the vessel had antibodies and none were infected or developed symptoms on the trip. 101 of the 104 infected developed antibodies within 50 days of their infection (most much quicker than that).

 

Second study out of Stockholm discussed T-Cell memory. It showed that people with no antibodies and who even had mild or asymptomatic cases, developed specific T-Cell markers for Sars-Cov 2 and had robust t-cell memory and believe that people with additional exposure to the disease will likely not have a severe case; also means a vaccine will likely be effective in the future. Although not discussed in the video the Swedish medical authorities have stated that based on T-cell studies in Stockholm, they believe 30% have these specific t-cells and from this study believe that this form of immunity will likely last for years similar to the original SARS disease.

 

Third Study from the University of Washington studied people with mild symptoms and the development of antibodies and b-cell and t-cell memory. It showed that exposure to the virus resulted in rapid t-cell replication and that memory b-cells expressed antibodies to the virus.

 

All 3 studies showed the same thing, that regardless of the severity of the disease that there was likely to be long lived immunity to the disease. People either get antibodies or t and b-cell memory specific to the virus. Herd immunity is likely achievable and that vaccines, if developed, are likely to be effective. People with good t-cell response will likely not get a severe case now or in the future and should have long term immunity of some kind.

 

Even if no vaccine ends up being developed some kind of herd immunity should eventually take place even if the disease is endemic.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Z6wdu1eI0

 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by vermin on arrival

3 hours ago, Pedrogaz said:

Just reading through the comments.....it is clear too me that propagandaand scapegoating works very, very effectively on many people.

Right. It's amazing how many people still believe what Trump says.

Tedros said the 1918 Spanish flu "took two years to stop".

 

LOL  Why and how the Spanish flu ended remains a complete mystery to this day.  Nobody "stopped" it.  Tedros is a grade A charlatan.

"But at the same time we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it."

 

If they have the technology and knowledge to stop it, as Tedros claims, then why are they hiding it?

 

Silly people who believe that mere technology can be used to control living organisms.  I would say there's an overwhelming lack of knowledge.  In my opinion, these people claim to know much, much more when they actually know very little.

3 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Both the WHO and the Chinese government made mistakes in the early stages of the epidemic.  However, the South Koreans and Taiwanese were surveiling China for just the kind of epidemic outbreak that Covid represents and pointedly did not believe the misrepresentations of WHO and China early on.  Instead, they started putting into effect their pandemic plans.  In the case of S. Korea, that meant ramping up test production on Dec. 31, 2019 which soon enabled them to have the most extensive program of testing, isolating, and tracing contacts.  Taiwan cut flights from China and kicked off the same program, although they did not test as widely as S. Korea.  Both countries were among the most successful in the world and remain so even though they never locked down their economies.  So, the errors of the WHO and the Chinese government did not prevent capable governments from succeeding in suppressing the virus with very low death rates.

 

By contrast, in 2017 Trump cut the CDC office in Beijing from 47 staff members to 14 and also cut the staffs of other US agencies in China.  The Beijing office of the the CDC had the main responsibility of surveiling outbreaks in China.  It is clear to me that all of the deaths in the US above a per capita rate comparable to S. Korea or Taiwan are entirely the responsibility of Trump and the Republicans in Congress.

Germany would actually be a more relevant example. South Korea and Thaiwan had experienced other epidemics in this region and were more aware of possible risk and how to prevent outbursts.

Germany had no specific prior experience and was exactly at the same level of information as the US and the UK. The three countries are members of the highest decision unit of the WHO: the board of executive. They had equal access to all known information about the coronavirus, at exactly the same date. 

 

Germany anticipated, and planned, organised, and produced. When the outburst occured end of February, they had an organisation and processes ready, enough supply of tests, PPE and other equipment. 

Germany: 9,000 deaths only.

 

At the same time (end of February), Trump was still publicly downplaying epidemic risks (as well as Trumper TV posters), despite multiple warnings from the WHO. 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by candide

17 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Tedros said the 1918 Spanish flu "took two years to stop".

 

LOL  Why and how the Spanish flu ended remains a complete mystery to this day.  Nobody "stopped" it.  Tedros is a grade A charlatan.

A complete mystery? Really? Epidemics do tend to end. Why is the ending of the Spanish Flu somehow different?