WHO epidemiologist: 'We're getting further away from the end' of COVID-19 pandemic

Coronavirus cases in L.A. County.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Infectious disease experts, like World Health Organization epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove and National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, are dismayed at the world's approach to the COVID-19 pandemic at the moment, The Washington Post reports.

Coronavirus infections are rising swiftly in the United States and elsewhere, and deaths and hospitalizations are ticking back up, as well, largely due to stalled vaccination drives and the growing presence of the so-called delta variant, which is more transmissible. "We're getting further away from the end than we should be," Van Kerkhove told the Post. "We're in a bad place right now globally."

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.