Today marks three months since WHO was alerted to a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause in Wuhan, China. Since then, the world as we know it has changed swiftly and dramatically, affecting millions of people’s lives.
I’m so saddened by the fact that more than 33,000 people around the world have lost their lives to COVID-19 in the past three months, and I would like to express my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones.
The Western Pacific Region was hit hard by SARS in 2003. We have been preparing for an event like this ever since, but this is a pandemic unlike the world has ever seen and it has challenged our systems, and put a strain on people’s lives, in an unprecedented way.