By Siwan Kim
Recently, Coronavirus has become a big part of our lives. As time went, we made vaccines and quarantine rules to stop coronavirus from getting stronger. However, because of this, some countries are recently getting too relaxed. The WHO (World Health Organization) expressed that some countries in America were putting back policies and restrictions to control coronavirus and doubled down to increase vaccination resulting in the high number of cases in Europe.
Dr. Carissa Etienne, a director of Pan American Health Organization says that in other countries, the cases of covid are increasing. For example, while cases of covid have fallen in America, Canada’s cases of coronavirus had an increase of 35%. Also, just in America, 240million people have yet to receive a single dose which puts them at risk as tourism and traveling is increasing. She says that countries should continue monitoring the virus and be prepared for whatever’s coming and always be alert.
When the corona pandemic began, Cuba decided to wait for the rest of the world to develop vaccines. However, the economic embargo prevented made products from being exported. So, Cuba’s other state-run biotechnology centers had to develop their own vaccines. Cuba’s regulatory agency authorized vaccines called Abdala and Soberana 02 shots for use in adults, and workers began immunizing children with both vaccines a few months later. They have already vaccinated 88% of its population and said that travelers will no longer be required to have proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test result to enter the country. This means that they are letting down the restrictions. However, while most countries eased their coronavirus restrictions, Mexico never did.The number of reported cases have decreased by 24 percent in that period of time. This means that because Mexico didn’t put down their restrictions, the number of cases has clearly gone down compared to other countries that released some other restrictions.
W.H.O officials from all around the world are saying and warning that relaxing and putting down restrictions too soon can lead to a more serious problem such as a surge in cases. For example, there was actually a wave where a very infectious Omicron subvariant swept through Europe. Hans Kluge said “It is plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of a pandemic end game, that estimation with those cases that are increasing Omicron could infect 60 percent of Europe by March.” He also added that other variants will appear so we have to at least try to maintain our rules.
To conclude, I have talked about WHO warning countries about relaxing covid restrictions too quickly. I also hope that those countries realize how serious this problem can become and together solve this problem by stopping it before it happens with rules and restrictions.
Yeoksam Times 
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