COVID-19: Can't keep on mothballing ourselves, says WHO official
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“But I think, at the same time, we’ve got to get on with life, and we can’t go on mothballing ourselves forever," he said.
Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday said that he would urge people to maintain social distancing and keep using face masks.
Dr Nabarro said: “I’m pleased with the reality that people are being quite cautious, perhaps even a little bit afraid, of what this virus might bring.
“But I think, at the same time, we’ve got to get on with life, and we can’t go on mothballing ourselves forever.
“So, finding a way to restart, despite this fear, is what I think we will have to do," he said.
"We must maintain a very vigilant posture in the coming months because there will, no doubt, be variants appearing but, at the same time, we have to get on with life so in our getting on with life, we have to just be on the lookout for new spikes of disease and deal with them when they come."
"It (the virus) is constantly capable of changing, and as it changes, it has the ability, we believe, and not demonstrated so far, but it could develop the ability to be able to evade the protection that's been given to us by these wonderful vaccines. But we deal with that when it comes. And we deal with it by being on the alert and by being able to pick up new clusters of disease very, very fast and then to deal with them also very fast." he added.
(With inputs from agencies)