The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO) is warn­ing gov­ern­ments in the Amer­i­c­as that those in their pop­u­la­tions not yet ex­posed to COVID-19 are still very much at risk of the dis­ease, and re­open­ing economies must be done care­ful­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly.

And the PA­HO Di­rec­tor, Dr Caris­sa F. Eti­enne, is rec­om­mend­ing a se­ries of mea­sures for min­i­miz­ing trans­mis­sion and adapt­ing spaces to make them as safe as they can be, as coun­tries re­open. She al­so asked for con­tin­ued mon­i­tor­ing and con­tain­ment of the virus and en­sur­ing that enough hos­pi­tal beds are avail­able.

Re­open­ing so­ci­eties be­fore health sys­tems are ready “would risk a hand­ful of cas­es in one area be­com­ing a full-blown out­break,” Dr Eti­enne said.

“As lead­ers across the world face pres­sure to re­sume so­cial and pub­lic life, it’s im­por­tant that they avoid mak­ing de­ci­sions in a vac­u­um. Da­ta about the virus’s spread and the state of health sys­tems and ser­vices must guide each coun­try’s plans to re­open, in­clud­ing the mix of pre­ven­tive mea­sures that should re­main in place to keep peo­ple safe,” she told a me­dia brief­ing to­day.

She said the ba­sic prin­ci­ples of ad­just­ing in­di­vid­ual be­hav­iour, adapt­ing spaces, and ex­er­cis­ing po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship are key to mak­ing trans­porta­tion, work­places, schools and pub­lic spaces as safe as they can be for all.

The Amer­i­c­as reached two som­bre mile­stones this week, Eti­enne said, with over half a mil­lion deaths and near­ly 15 mil­lion re­port­ed in­fec­tions in the re­gion.

“Count­less peo­ple in our re­gion re­main vul­ner­a­ble to in­fec­tion, es­pe­cial­ly large pop­u­la­tions that have not yet been ex­posed,” she not­ed.

With re­spect to min­i­miz­ing trans­mis­sion as coun­tries re­open, “whether it’s re-start­ing schools, re-open­ing pub­lic mar­kets or re­sum­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el, when and how we do it mat­ters,” she ad­vised:

“Coun­tries must en­sure they have the staff, tools and re­sources in place to mon­i­tor and con­tain the virus. They must be pre­pared to car­ry out tests, con­duct con­tact trac­ing, iso­late and quar­an­tine and en­sure enough hos­pi­tal beds are avail­able to care for pa­tients who de­vel­op se­vere symp­toms.”

Dr Eti­enne urged in­di­vid­u­als to be re­spon­si­ble and keep a safe dis­tance from oth­ers, a proven mea­sure to lim­it the spread of COVID-19.

She added: “Pub­lic spaces must al­so be adapt­ed to re­duce trans­mis­sion. Sim­ple, yet im­por­tant mea­sures like of­fer­ing hand­wash­ing or hand san­i­tiz­ing sta­tions, and al­ter­ing lay­outs and hours to al­low so­cial dis­tanc­ing, and to lim­it the num­ber of peo­ple in the same space at the same time should be the norm for now.”

“In­doors, we need to en­sure ad­e­quate ven­ti­la­tion and lim­it close con­tact with each oth­er. We al­so must con­tin­ue to keep our dis­tance out­doors,” the PA­HO Di­rec­tor ad­vised.

She al­so re­marked on the chal­lenges faced by the trav­el in­dus­try in lim­it­ing the spread of the virus.

“Re­ly­ing on lab­o­ra­to­ry tests for trav­ellers is ex­pen­sive, hard to im­ple­ment and of lim­it­ed im­pact in con­trol­ling the in­ter­na­tion­al spread of the virus,” Dr Eti­enne ob­served. “We must en­sure that in­di­vid­u­als who are sick or sus­pect they’re sick with COVID—and their con­tacts—be quick­ly iden­ti­fied and iso­lat­ed to min­i­mize the chances of get­ting oth­ers in­fect­ed, first and fore­most, pri­or to de­par­ture, as well as af­ter ar­rival.”

Not­ing that some coun­tries are prepar­ing for elec­tions soon, Eti­enne said care­ful plan­ning was need­ed to pre­vent spread by avoid­ing large gath­er­ings and of­fer­ing al­ter­nate op­tions like vot­ing by mail or dig­i­tal­ly.

“Gov­ern­ments must lead in na­tion­al ef­forts to en­sure pub­lic health mea­sures are in place for in-per­son vot­ing and that cit­i­zens are aware of how to main­tain their safe­ty and that of oth­ers at the bal­lot box,” she said.