The World Health Organization’s top emergencies expert said that national lockdowns cannot alone beat the coronavirus, and more action is needed.
Michael Ryan, who heads the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, urged world governments to take further measures in combating the coronavirus, such as identifying people with the virus and quarantining them, forcibly if necessary.
“What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus, and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them,” Ryan told the BBC on Sunday, according to Reuters.
“The danger right now with the lockdowns … if we don’t put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up,” Ryan said. “Once we’ve suppressed the transmission, we have to go after the virus. We have to take the fight to the virus.”
Ryan praised the coronavirus responses of China, Singapore, and South Korea for implementing strict restrictions and aggressive, widespread testing to locate and contain the disease.
The Chinese Communist Party has touted a supposed turning point in its fight against the coronavirus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year. Chinese health officials reported on Thursday that all infected in the previous 24 hours had come from outside of China. The government hailed the report as signifying that China had largely stopped local infections.
U.S. officials and others have questioned the veracity of Chinese government reports, blaming the Chinese Communist Party for covering up the outbreak in its early stages while allowing millions of people to travel in and out of Wuhan for weeks before closing the down the city. China also reportedly punished doctors who attempted to warn of the new virus.
