Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, called the whole world to return anti-covid measures. For now, it is not about lockdowns and closing borders, but about a general mask regime and mass testing. Tourism is already strained by habit: the signal is alarming, and everyone already knows how quickly the WHO moves to other recommendations that are dangerous for tourism.
“The world needs to return to proven methods of combating COVID-19 in connection with the increase in the incidence of new strains of the coronavirus,” the head of the WHO said. Among the tested measures, he named a return to the mass mask regime, and also advised the authorities to return to the practice of mass testing for COVID-19.
Mr. Ghebreyesus alarmed tourists with an alarming signal in the form of an ever-increasing number of hospitalizations and called on national governments to “apply the tried and tested and well-recommended measures” mentioned above. He also emphasized that the pandemic is “not even close to being over.”
“It is doubly difficult to simultaneously inform people about the risk and build trust in public health tools and social measures aimed at protecting health, including masking, social distancing, and ventilation,” the WHO chief also said.
The reason for this statement was the increase in cases of the Omicron strain subspecies BA.4 and BA.5. Moreover, the fact that many countries have canceled almost all restrictive measures – that is, the return of tourism in the end – has already been named by the WHO as one of the reasons for their outbreak.