As the #COVID19 death toll surpasses 2.6 million in the Americas 🌎 and restrictions lift, countries must prepare to respond quickly to new variants or outbreaks 🦠
🌎 These lessons are key to improving our COVID response and tackling other health and development challenges to build a healthier, stronger, more resilient region together 🤝
🌎 Our wins against COVID-19 show us what is possible when we work together, and use the tools 😷 we know are effective.
They also highlight where there are still gaps, and where we can do things better.
🌎 As we plan for future phases of the pandemic, we must remember that COVID-19 🦠 is still a real threat that places a greater burden on the poor and most vulnerable.
🌎 Only 14 countries achieved coverage of 70% of their populations with completed vaccine schedules.
🌎 In Latin America and the Caribbean, about 248 million people have yet to receive their first dose of the vaccine 🩹, and these gaps are concentrated in harder to reach, rural areas or underserved areas.
🌎 We must also be prepared to tighten public health guidance if cases go back up ⬆️
When places relax measures at the wrong moment, transmission spikes 📈 dangerously and we lose more lives.
🌎 #COVID19 is likely to be here to stay. We must learn to live with this 🦠, and quickly adapt to new changes.
We can do that by keeping our finger on the pulse of the pandemic, and adjusting public health guidance any time there is a risk of increased transmission. @DirOPSPAHO twitter.com/pahowho/status…
🌎 Health care workers 👩🏽⚕️🧑🏾⚕️ now know the best kind of care to provide to COVID patients, and we have better treatment options.
And we know that masking, physical distancing and other public health measures work well to slow the spread of the virus.
🌎 We can acknowledge some gains in our fight against this virus 🦠
When we started, we didn’t know much about COVID-19.
But now, we have safe vaccines 🩹that protect us from the most severe disease and are saving countless lives.
