Beautiful Virgin Islands

Tuesday, Jun 24, 2025

Coronavirus: WHO urges governments to act and not be ‘paralysed by the fear of failure’

Europe is now the epicentre of the pandemic, leader of global health body says. A multipronged approach is urged: testing, contact tracing, quarantine and social distancing. ‘Do it all,’ WHO urges.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that it would resist being dragged into a blame game over which country was responsible for the coronavirus pandemic and urged governments to move swiftly to deal with the situation instead of being “paralysed by the fear of failure”.

As the number of cases being reported daily worldwide now exceeds the peak daily new infections reported by China at the height of its epidemic in February, the head of the UN agency’s health emergencies programme, Michael Ryan, said at a briefing that a major worry was that “everyone is afraid of the consequences of error”.

“The greatest error is not to move,” he said. “The greatest error is to be paralysed by the fear of failure. And I think that’s the single biggest lesson I’ve learned in Ebola responses in the past.”

At the same briefing, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Europe had become the epicentre of the pandemic.

As of early Friday, some 162,000 infections had been reported in 123 countries and territories, with more than 5,000 fatalities, he said.

While China was the early focal point of the outbreak, infections have drastically slowed there and the disease is now gripping the European continent. Italy is the worst affected country after China, with 1,266 dead and 17,660 confirmed cases since the contagion first surfaced there on February 21.

Spain, the worst-affected European country after Italy, reported a 50 per cent jump in fatalities to 120 on Friday. Infections increased to 4,231.

Attention has shifted from Milan to Madrid, where Spanish Prime Minister Pedros Sanchez warned the number of confirmed cases could jump to 10,000 next week.

“We are only in the first phase of the fight against the virus. Very hard weeks await us,” he said as he announced a state of alarm for the country.

Part of Catalonia has already been locked down, but the main concern lies in Madrid, where all shops except those selling food and necessities are now closed.

At least four countries – Poland, Denmark, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – announced they would completely shut their borders.

Tedros said the WHO’s main message to countries was to continue to employ a multipronged approach to deal with the outbreak.

“You must take a comprehensive approach, not testing alone, not contact tracing alone, not quarantine alone, not social distancing alone. Do it all,” he said.

“Any country that looks at the experience of other countries with large epidemics and thinks ‘that won’t happen to us’ is making a deadly mistake,” he said. “It can happen to any country.”

Tedros said the experience of countries now seeing a slower rate of new infections – China, South Korea and Singapore, among others – “clearly demonstrates that aggressive testing and contact tracing combined with social distancing measured measures and community mobilisation can prevent infections and save lives”.

When Ryan was asked which country was faring well in its coronavirus response, he said: “We are not seeking to identify those who are doing poorly or doing well. We’re trying to identify the best lessons we can all use and the best way to move forward together.

“No one has done perfectly and no one has made all the mistakes. We share all the errors together, so we will share failure in the same way we will share success.”

Ryan’s comments came as the US and China escalated their sparring over who was to blame for the pandemic. In a rare televised address from the Oval Office on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump called the outbreak a “foreign virus”.

Some of his allies, including Republican Senator Rick Scott and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, referred to it as the “Chinese coronavirus” or the “Wuhan virus”.

On the other side of the coin, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian left many baffled as he tweeted on Thursday with claims that it was the US military that brought the virus to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where a bulk of China’s Covid-19 infections and deaths occurred.



In response, the US state department summoned the Chinese ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai, on Friday.

A state department spokesman said the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, David Stilwell, gave a very “stern representation” of the US government’s position on the matter to Cui.

Friday’s briefing at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters was the first held with no journalists present, as part of recommended social distancing measures.

WHO officials did not address Trump’s 30-day travel ban on 26 European countries, which was announced on Wednesday night.
Ryan said while each country must decide on the course of action to take to protect its population, “we’ve also consistently said that blanket travel measures in their own right will do nothing to protect an individual state”.

“In fact, many countries who have outright travel bans early in this response, ended up importing cases anyway, and may have reacted later than they should have because they assumed travel restrictions would protect them,” he said.

Trump, under fire for his administration’s languid response to the outbreak, declared a national emergency on Friday, freeing up money and waiving some regulations to deal with the outbreak.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Airlines Evaluate Flight Cancellations Amid Escalating US-Iran Tensions
Starmer Invites Innovators to Join Government Talent Scheme
UK Economy’s Strong Opening Quarter Shows Signs of Cooling
Harrods Seeks Court Order to Secure Al Fayed Estate for Victims
BA and Singapore Airlines Cancel Dubai Flights Amid Middle East Tensions
Trump Faces Backlash from MAGA Base Over Iran Strikes
Meta Bets $14 B on Alexandr Wang to Drive AI Ambitions
WATCH: Israeli forces show the aftermath of a massive airstrike at Iran's Isfahan nuclear site
FedEx Founder Fred Smith, ‘Heart and Soul’ of the Company, Dies at 80
Chinese Factories Shift Away from U.S. Amid Trump‑Era Tariffs
Pimco Seizes Opportunity in Japan’s Dislocated Bond Market
Labubu Doll Drives Pop Mart to Status as China’s Most Valuable Toy Maker
Global Coal Demand Defies Paris Accord Goals
We have new information and breaking details to share about what is shaping up to be a historic air campaign tonight
Six Massive Bombs Dropped on Fordow; Trump: 'A Historic Moment for the U.S., Israel, and the World'
Fordow: Deeply Buried Iranian Enrichment Site in U.S.–Israel Crosshairs
United States Conducts Precision Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites
US strikes Iran nuclear sites, Trump says
Pakistan to nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize.
BBC Demands Perplexity AI Immediately Stop Using Its Content
Telegram Founder: I Will Leave My Fortune to Over 100 of My Children
Political Turmoil Resurfaces in Belgium Amid Economic Concerns
Fed policymakers divided on timing of interest rate cuts
Trump signals imminent agreement with Harvard University
Inheritance tax referendum alarms Swiss billionaire community
Japan cancels bilateral security meeting amid US defence demands
AI skeptic Emily Bender warns that ‘the emperor has no clothes’
Israel Confirms Assassination of Quds Force Commander in Tehran
16 Billion Login Credentials Leaked in Unprecedented Cybersecurity Breach
Senate hearing on who was 'really running' Biden White House kicks off
Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect
FBI and Senate Investigate Allegations of Chinese Plot to Influence the 2020 Election in Biden’s Favor Using Fake U.S. Driver’s Licenses
Vietnam Emerges as Luxury Yacht Destination for Ultra‑Rich
Plans to Sell Dutch Embassy in Bangkok Face Local Opposition
China's Iranian Oil Imports Face Disruption Amid Escalating Middle East Tensions
Trump's $5 Million 'Trump Card' Visa Program Draws Nearly 70,000 Applicants
DGCA Finds No Major Safety Concerns in Air India's Boeing 787 Fleet
Airlines Reroute Flights Amid Expanding Middle East Conflict Zones
Elon Musk's xAI Seeks $9.3 Billion in Funding Amid AI Expansion
Trump Demands Iran's Unconditional Surrender Amid Escalating Conflict
Israeli Airstrike Targets Iranian State TV in Central Tehran
President Trump is leaving the G7 summit early and has ordered the National Security Council to the Situation Room
Taiwan Imposes Export Ban on Chips to Huawei and SMIC
Israel has just announced plans to strike Tehran again, and in response, Trump has urged people to evacuate
Netanyahu Signals Potential Regime Change in Iran
Juncker Criticizes EU Inaction on Trump Tariffs
EU Proposes Ban on New Russian Gas Contracts
Analysts Warn Iran May Resort to Unconventional Warfare
Iranian Regime Faces Existential Threat Amid Conflict
Energy Infrastructure Becomes War Zone in Middle East
×