"I call for the most extreme caution with regard to the total lifting of health and social restrictions at this time, because this will have consequences", said on Wednesday Dr Mike Ryan, in charge of health emergencies at the WHO .

He calls for "not to erase the progress". 

The WHO warned on Wednesday against lifting too broad the health restrictions put in place to try to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, including in countries with a high vaccination rate.

"I call for the most extreme caution regarding the total lifting of health and social restrictions at this time, because it will have consequences," said Dr Mike Ryan, in charge of health emergencies at the WHO, during a press conference, where he was asked about the British authorities' plan to lift the remaining restrictions linked to the virus on July 19.

"This idea that everyone is protected and that we sing 'Kumbaya' and that everything will return to normal is a very dangerous assumption anywhere in the world," he said.

"Do not erase progress"

Dr Ryan made it clear that he refused to designate individual countries but believes that "this hypothesis is dangerous even in Europe".

"I ask governments to be really careful not to erase the progress we have made and to open with caution," he said waving the specter of the darkest hours, when hospitals were overflowing and caregivers were exhausted.

"Assuming that the infection rate will not increase because of the vaccines is a mistake," said the Irish doctor, referring to the insufficient vaccination rate or the fact that it is not yet known whether a person vaccinated can transmit the disease.

The frustration of WHO leaders, which grows with each new wave that looms and the impression of always repeating the same things in terms of health precautions and individual responsibility, is becoming more and more palpable publicly.

Maria van Kerkhove, in charge of coordinating the fight against Covid-19 at the WHO, had recently acknowledged that she sounded like "a broken record" by repeating that the virus can be beaten by drawing lessons from the past and using the entire epidemiological toolbox available.

On Wednesday, she said there are "more than two dozen countries that have epidemic curves that are almost vertical."

"Too many countries are experiencing a sharp increase in cases"

WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who announced that the officially recorded death toll had passed the 4 million mark on Wednesday, was outraged that "some countries with high vaccination coverage are now planning to proceed with reminders in the coming months and abandon social public health measures and relax as if the pandemic was already over ". 

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"However, due to the rapid evolution of variants and the shocking inequality in immunization, far too many countries in all regions of the world are experiencing a sharp increase in cases and hospitalizations," he added. .

This vaccine nationalism, which has seen rich countries grab the bulk of doses of anti-Covid vaccines, is "morally indefensible and ineffective from a public health point of view against a respiratory virus which mutates rapidly and which manages to pass from human to human more and more efficiently ".

"At this stage of the pandemic, the fact that millions of healthcare workers have still not been vaccinated is odious," he also denounced at the same press briefing.