NEW YORK, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide topped 2 million on Monday evening local time, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
The fresh figure reached 2,019,320 with 119,483 deaths as of 8 p.m. local time (0000 GMT on Tuesday), the CSSE said.
A man reads a newspaper with the headline: 'PM in intensive care', outside St Thomas' Hospital in central London as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in intensive care fighting the coronavirus in London, Tuesday, April 7, 2020. (Photo: AP)
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that while it was “happy to see slowdown in COVID-19” in the hardest-hit European countries, lifting restrictions on movement must be based on protecting human health.
With other European countries eyeing similar options as rates for hospitalization and confirmed cases decreased in some nations over the weekend, the executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, Michael J. Ryan was unequivocal:
"By no means does that mean it is over. Now is the time for vigilance. Now is the time to double down. Now is the time to be very, very careful."
"In the past week, we've seen a welcome slowing in some of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, like Spain, Italy, Germany and France," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a briefing.
"While COVID-19 accelerates very fast, it decelerates much more slowly. In other words, the way down is slower than the way up."
Michael J. Ryan warned that countries could not simply unlock their economies and go back to normal overnight:
"You can't replace lockdown with nothing. You must replace lockdown with a very deeply educated, committed, empowered and engaged community. We are going to have to change our behaviors for the foreseeable future."
He added that from the WHO's perspective, testing and isolating victims was still the only way to move away from lockdown measures. The way out was "to find the virus. The only way we find the virus is to identify those people who may be infected and test and isolate."
(With input from CGTN)