GENEVA: The World Health Organization warned Monday that wearing masks alone would not be enough to defeat the global coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more than 70,000 people.
“Masks should only ever be used as part of a comprehensive package of interventions. There is no black or white answer, and no silver bullet. Masks alone cannot stop the Covid-19 pandemic,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world soared past one million on Thursday and killed more than 70,000 as Europe reeled from the pandemic and the United States reported the highest daily death toll so far of any country.
Despite more than half the planet imposing some form of lockdown, the virus claimed thousands more lives, with the US, Spain and Britain seeing the highest number of daily fatalities yet.
And it continued to wreak havoc on the global economy.