If you thought Memorial Day weekend marked the end of the coronavirus’ first wave of victims, the World Health Organization wants you to pump your breaks on the premature celebrations.
According to Newsweek, Monday, representatives from WHO revealed that even though countries all over Europe and North America have begun to reopen in the wake of widespread quarantines, many nations are still experiencing alarming upticks in the number of novel coronavirus cases.
READ MORE: White House imposes coronavirus travel ban on Brazil
WHO’s Executive Director of Emergencies, Dr. Michael Ryan explained during the press conference that outbreak confirmed by health officials in South America, Africa and South Asia, actually rose sharply just in the last week alone.
“Right now, we’re not in the second wave. We’re right in the middle of the first wave globally,” Ryan said in response to an inquiry about a possible resurgence of infections. “For many other countries, we’re still very much in a phase where the disease is actually on the way up,” he continued.
⚠️@WHO’s top #pandemic expert @DrMikeRyan warns of a 2nd peak during this 1st wave of #coronavirus infections: “We may get a 2nd peak in this wave (BEFORE the 2nd wave), this happened during pandemics in the past.” #COVID19 cases can “jump up at any time”.pic.twitter.com/5HKPC6BatO
— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) May 26, 2020
The public health agency’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also highlighted upward outbreak trajectories occurring most notably in lower-income regions.
“In the last 24 hours, there have been 106,000 cases reported to WHO, the most in a single day since the outbreak began,” Ghebreyesus said to the press. “We’re very concerned about the rising numbers of cases in low and middle-income countries.
Tuesday, it was confirmed that over 5.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide since the start of the global pandemic, resulting in at least 346,836 deaths.
The United States has reported over 1.6 million cases and almost 100,000 deaths so far. Among the U.S. virus hotspots or places seeing an increase in cases are Florida, Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina, which either shut down late or reopened early.
READ MORE: The New York Times publishes breathtaking front page as U.S. coronavirus deaths near 100,000
Though many annual events that involved large groups of people have postponed or cancelled their 2020 plans, President Donald Trump asked North Carolina to still hold the Republican National Convention scheduled there for August.
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