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WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 3:58
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 10 JUNE 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, podium in press room
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Since early February, we have said that asymptomatic people can transmit COVID-19, but that we need more research to establish the extent of asymptomatic transmission. That research is ongoing, and we are seeing more and more research being done.”
3. Wide shot, podium in press room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“This is a new virus, and we are all learning all the time. Communicating complex science in real time about a new virus is not always easy, but we believe it’s part of our duty to the world. And we can always do better. We welcome constructive debate – that’s how science advances.”
5. Wide shot, podium in press room
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“I think each and every country has a different combination of, risks and opportunities at this point. And it's really down to national authorities to carefully consider where they are in the pandemic. This may be a pandemic of maybe effecting the world, but it's affecting each and every country in a different way, depending on when disease came, depending on how the initial responses were managed and depending on how the diseases are evolving at this point.”
7. Wide shot, podium in press room
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“By no means is this over. If we look at the numbers over the last number of weeks, this pandemic is still evolving. It is still growing in many parts of the world. And we have deep concerns that health systems in some countries are struggling and they're under a huge strain and require our support and our help and our solidarity.”
9. Wide shot, podium in press room
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We fully, fully understand that the governments are very reticent to go back into lockdowns, which are potentially damaging to social and economic life. But at the same time, if that cannot be done and that is not appropriate and this, and, and, and there's not an avenue that governments want to take. There is so much more that can be done and what we would like to see as the investments in those other things. It's not a matter of, should we do lock downs or should we not? If lockdowns are not possible or not appropriate, then there are many, many, many other things that can be done. And what we would like to see is the investments in those other things, particularly in investing at community level in community led surveillance, in early warning in quarantine, and then all of the other measures.”
11. Wide shot, podium in press room
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“And people have spoken about flattening the curve. I don't particularly like that term myself, I'd rather we go for trying to be a bit more ambitious, not just spreading disease out over time, but as we do that, trying to reduce the ultimate impact of the disease and actually not just flattening this thing down and experiencing it for a terrible amount of time, but at a level of which we can bear, but we're a little bit more ambitious in our public health objectives and trying to truly suppress the disease and do, like Maria said, countries like New Zealand have managed to achieve.”
13. Wide shot, podium in press room
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We do know is that influenza viruses have a Northern and Southern hemisphere cycle. And we do know we're entering the, the cycle of the Southern hemisphere influenza season. What we don't know. Is how the coronavirus is going to behave in the, in the same situation.”
15. Wide shot, podium in press room
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Right now we have no data to suggest that the virus will behave, more aggressively or transmit more efficiently, or not.”
17. Wide shot, podium in press room
“Communicating complex science in real time about a new virus is not always easy, but we believe it’s part of our duty to the world,” said WHO’s chief Tedros Ghebreyesus in a regular press briefing on the Covid-19 pandemic in Geneva on Wednesday, adding “we can always do better.”
“We welcome constructive debate – that’s how science advances,” said Tedros.
“Since early February, we have said that asymptomatic people can transmit COVID-19, but that we need more research to establish the extent of asymptomatic transmission. That research is ongoing, and we are seeing more and more research being done,” he said.
“Each and every country has a different combination of, risks and opportunities at this point. And it's really down to national authorities to carefully consider where they are in the pandemic,” said WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Michael Ryan.
“By no means is this over. If we look at the numbers over the last number of weeks, this pandemic is still evolving. It is still growing in many parts of the world,” he said adding his “deep concerns that health systems in some countries are struggling and they're under a huge strain and require our support and our help and our solidarity.”
WHO fully understands the reluctance of governments towards lockdowns, Ryan said but “there are many, many, many other things that can be done” to curb the spread of the virus.
“What we would like to see is the investments in those other things, particularly in investing at community level in community led surveillance, in early warning in quarantine, and then all of the other measures,” explained Ryan.
He also said that as we’re entering the Southern Hemisphere's influenza season, the WHO has “no data to suggest that the virus will behave, more aggressively or transmit more efficiently, or not.”
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