Giving up on COVID-19 prevention efforts 'dangerous': WHO

Abandoning efforts to control the coronavirus was “dangerous”, warned the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We understand the pandemic fatigue that people are feeling,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, in a virtual briefing on Monday, “It takes a mental and physical toll on everyone and no one wants more so-called lockdowns.”

He added that everyone will have to play their part. “We cannot give up. We must not give up.”

There are 43 million cases of coronavirus to date, and 1.15 million deaths. The United States has the highest death toll in the world.

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Ghebreyesus’s comments came after the US President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows told CNN that the administration's focus had moved to mitigation, not stamping out the virus.

"We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations," Meadows said. He then compared the deadly virus to a flu.

But Ghebreyesus said that giving up on virus controls was "dangerous".