The World Health Organization has warned that countries like the United States and those in Europe that are seeing major spikes in new coronavirus cases may need to again shut down their nonessential businesses and impose stay-at-home orders.

“We’re well behind this virus,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said during a media briefing Monday at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. 

“We will have to get ahead of this virus, and (that) may require sacrifice for many, many people in terms of their personal lives. It may require shutting down and restricting movement and having stay-at-home orders in order to take the heat out of this phase of the pandemic.”  

The United States on Monday hit a record daily high of 69,967 coronavirus cases, eclipsing the prior all-time high set on Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day average of new daily cases has jumped 20 percent compared to a week ago.

In all, the United States has witnessed roughly 8.7 million confirmed cases and at least 225,000 related deaths.

Outside the United States, at least seven countries, of which four of them are in Europe, reported record highs in average daily new cases over the weekend. When adjusting for population, the number of new infections in Europe has surpassed that of the United States—with Europe at 324 cases per one million people and the United States 209 cases.

Overall, Europe—which includes twenty-seven European Union countries and the United Kingdom—has been hit by roughly 168,000 new cases per day.

“When we look across Europe as a whole, you could certainly ask yourself the question of whether there was enough invested through the first wave and ensuring there were full and adequate resources in each of those critical areas,” Ryan said.

“We are seeing a large number of cases, we are seeing widespread disease, we are seeing very, very high positivity rates and an increasing lack of capacity to do any effective form of contact tracing.”  

Just last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that some countries are on “a dangerous track” as hospitals are beginning to reach full capacity ahead of the winter season.  

“Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases and that’s now leading to hospitals and [Intensive Care Units] running close or above capacity and we’re still only in October,” he said.  

“We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. . . . The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track.”  

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn. 

Image: Reuters