The World Health Organization advised countries on Monday to continue enforcing safety measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic spread. WHO added that this includes limiting public gatherings.

WHO also urges people to protect vulnerable groups as they try to reopen business services.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the more control countries have on the virus, the more they can open up.

"Opening up without having control is a recipe for disaster," Tedros was quoted in a report.

The WHO Director-General also said that no country could pretend that the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

Tedros highlighted four essential things that all countries, communities, and individuals must focus on to take control of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The WHO official also said that countries should prevent amplifying events.

He added that many countries have linked to large gatherings at stadiums, nightclubs, and worship places.

Tedros said that countries should find "creative ways" to be social.

"Vulnerable groups such as older people, people with underlying conditions, and essential workers should also be protected to prevent deaths," he said.

The WHO Director-General said that individuals should play their part by wearing masks, social distancing, and practicing proper hygiene.

Tedros said that governments could avoid stay-at-home orders by making targeted responses to the COVID-19 pandemic through testing, contact-tracing, and isolating.

Tedros said that if countries are serious about opening up, they must also be serious about suppressing transmission and saving lives.

He added that this might seem like an impossible balance. But Tedros claimed it is not.

"It can be done, and it has been done," the WHO official was quoted in a report.

Tedros added the WHO recently issued guidance on how hotels, cargo ships, and fishing vessels can safely resume operations.

This as part of their commitment to support every sector to reopen as safely as possible.

WHO earlier said that mask-wearing and social distancing should be imposed in many countries even if a vaccine is eventually brought to the market.

Global COVID-19 Cases

Global COVID-19 cases topped 25 million, with high daily cases in the U.S. and India.

WHO said it received support from the European Commission for the COVAX vaccine initiative and shared results of a new survey that shoed widespread disruption of healthcare delivery.

Tedros thanked the EC for its participation in the COVAX Facility and for its $470 million contributions.

The COVAX Facility pairs pooling the risk of supporting vaccine development with securing vaccine doses for countries at a reasonable price.

The program has nine candidate vaccines in its portfolio, as of now.

It also has a goal of delivering two billion doses by the end of 2021.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO's chief scientist, warned that authorizing a vaccine too early with too little data could create complications.

Swaminathan said the risk of approving a vaccine prematurely would make it very difficult to continue with randomized clinical trials.

The WHO scientist added that there is a risk of introducing a vaccine that has been inadequately studied and might turn out to have low efficacy or have a safety profile that is not acceptable.

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