A senior World Health Organization official said Thursday the coronavirus pandemic “will get worse before it gets better.”
Earlier 100 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 bringing the total number of cases in Israel to 100, the Health Ministry confirmed.
World Health Organization Spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said in an exclusive interview with Ynet the vaccine for the new virus is at least “12 to 15” months away.
“A vaccine first needs to be developed, then it needs tests, then it needs production so it will all take some time even if it would be found very soon,” he said. “We are thinking about 12 to 15 months, so definitely not something during this year.”
He urged governments around the world to continue implementing strict directives in an effort to minimize the number of new cases, seeing as the end of the current outbreak does not appear to be in sight.
“The situation worldwide with the rise of cases and the spread in some countries - some uncontrolled - characterizes a pandemic, so unfortunately we have to assume it will get worse before it gets better.”
Lindmeier praised the Chinese authorities, who recently said they’ve managed to contain the outbreak with new cases falling to single digits, for mobilizing efficiently to fight the virus spread.
Although he singled out Iran, Italy, South Korea as the states that struggle to contain the outbreak, he pointed out he doesn’t believe it’s “dangerous” to travel to those countries.
“I wouldn’t call it [Italy] dangerous, depends a lot on your personal behavior,” he said. “If you keep your distance , be careful what you touch and who you touch and practice good hand hygiene … you and everybody can protect themselves that way.”
He added that contrary to popular belief the new virus is not “just like the flu”, although sometimes it behaves “flu-like.”
“It has its own characteristics which we still don’t fully understand and that’s why it is important to have some drastic measures [to combat the outbreak].”
He concluded by suggesting all countries must fight together to defeat the new virus.
“This is all of us together.”