● Vac­ci­na­tion and con­tin­ued pub­lic health mea­sures cru­cial, giv­en spikes in Eu­rope and ap­proach­ing hol­i­day sea­son ●

(PA­HO) — With Eu­rope see­ing record spikes in COVID-19 in­fec­tions and cas­es ris­ing by 23% in the Amer­i­c­as over the past week, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) Di­rec­tor Caris­sa F. Eti­enne warned there is no room for com­pla­cen­cy in tack­ling the pan­dem­ic.

“As end of year cel­e­bra­tions ap­proach, get vac­ci­nat­ed, keep gath­er­ings small and en­sure mask wear­ing and so­cial dis­tanc­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in­doors,” she urged in a me­dia brief­ing to­day. 

Over the last few weeks, many Eu­ro­pean coun­tries have re­port­ed record num­bers of new cas­es de­spite high vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age. The re­lax­ation of pub­lic health mea­sures com­bined with pock­ets of un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple has cre­at­ed the per­fect en­vi­ron­ment for the virus to spread, Dr. Eti­enne said.

“Through­out this pan­dem­ic, Eu­rope has been a win­dow in­to the fu­ture for the Amer­i­c­as,” the PA­HO Di­rec­tor warned. “The fu­ture is un­fold­ing be­fore us, and it must be a wake­up call for our re­gion.”

Up­ward trends are al­ready seen through­out the Amer­i­c­as, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da. In South Amer­i­ca, near­ly every coun­try is re­port­ing in­creased in­ci­dences, in­clud­ing in the South­ern Cone. High rates of in­fec­tion are al­so re­port­ed in the Caribbean. Cen­tral Amer­i­ca is the on­ly area to have ex­pe­ri­enced a drop in new in­fec­tions.

While just over half of peo­ple in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean are now ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID, 19 coun­tries have yet to reach the WHO tar­get of 40% vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age by the end of 2021. De­spite this, pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures are be­ing lift­ed, in­clud­ing in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas.

“Every time we low­er our guard, the virus gains mo­men­tum,” the PA­HO Di­rec­tor said, “and threat­ens our hard-fought gains.”

Last year, the Amer­i­c­as saw a jump in new cas­es fol­low­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, which took months to de­cline.  With the up­com­ing hol­i­days and sum­mer va­ca­tions in the South­ern Hemi­sphere, Dr. Eti­enne warned that “our in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive de­ci­sions chart the path of this pan­dem­ic.”

It is there­fore cru­cial that in­di­vid­u­als get vac­ci­nat­ed as soon as pos­si­ble to pro­tect against se­vere dis­ease and pre­vent hos­pi­tals from be­com­ing over­whelmed, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they plan to trav­el, she said.

More than 1.3 bil­lion COVID-19 vac­cine dos­es have been ad­min­is­tered in the Amer­i­c­as and PA­HO is work­ing to ex­pand ac­cess in places that are falling be­hind.

The PA­HO Di­rec­tor said that con­tin­ued pub­lic health mea­sures along­side vac­ci­na­tion are al­so key to re­duc­ing the spread. These in­clude mask wear­ing, so­cial dis­tanc­ing and avoid­ing large gath­er­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­doors.

“We’ve al­ready faced the con­se­quences of an un­con­trolled pan­dem­ic and we don’t want to be in that po­si­tion again,” she added.

“It’s up to all of us to make smart and safe choic­es this hol­i­day sea­son so we can pro­tect our­selves and each oth­er from this virus.”