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'Hope to finish this pandemic in less than two years': WHO chief

Eastern Eye Staff
By Eastern Eye StaffAug 22, 2020
Eastern Eye Staff
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THE World Health Organization has said it hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu, and last less than two years if the world unites and succeeds in finding a vaccine.

The WHO has always been cautious about giving estimates on how quickly the pandemic can be dealt with while there is no proven vaccine.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted on Friday (21) that the Spanish flu "took two years to stop".

"And in our situation now with more technology, and of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading, it can move fast because we are more connected now," he told a briefing in Geneva.

"But at the same time we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it. So we have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology.

"So we hope to finish this pandemic (in) less than two years."

He urged "national unity" and "global solidarity".

"That is really key with utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccine."

More than 22.81 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally since it was first identified in China last year and 793,382​ have died, according to a Reuters tally.

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Kim Kardashian's SKIMS opens on Regent Street, in the same country her love life won't stop making headlines

Kim Kardashian attends the 2026 Met Gala celebrating "Costume Art" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 04, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

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Kim Kardashian's SKIMS opens on Regent Street, in the same country her love life won't stop making headlines

Key Highlights:

  • SKIMS has opened its first European flagship store, a 12,000 square foot site on London's Regent Street, its biggest single move into the UK market to date.
  • The store was designed by Rafael de Cárdenas, the same architect behind SKIMS' New York flagship, and features a nude sculpture by longtime collaborator Vanessa Beecroft.
  • The opening lands in the same summer Kardashian's relationship with Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton has been playing out publicly across Britain, from the Cotswolds to a shared trip through Tokyo.
There are a handful of people on earth whose store openings and whose love lives both make global news in the same breath. Kim Kardashian is one of them, and this summer, both have happened in the same country at the same time.
SKIMS, the shapewear brand she built into a multi-billion-dollar label, has just opened its first flagship store outside America, taking over a 12,000 square foot corner site on Regent Street. It's a genuine landmark for the brand. It's also, almost incidentally, happening in the exact country where her relationship with Lewis Hamilton has been playing out in public for months.

What does the store actually feel like inside?

Walk in, and the first thing you see is a towering nude sculpture by artist Vanessa Beecroft, lit from above by an oversized ceiling disc, framed by curved walls in the same fleshy, neutral tones SKIMS uses on its packaging. It's the kind of entrance built for a photo, and it's clearly meant to be one. The rest of the two-level store follows the same language throughout: soft curves, cream and beige everywhere, cabinets rounded enough to double as seats. It was designed by Rafael de Cárdenas, the same studio behind SKIMS' Fifth Avenue flagship in New York, so the London store deliberately echoes that one rather than starting from scratch.
Kardashian called London "one of the most inspiring fashion cities" in a statement marking the opening, and the choice to make it SKIMS' first flagship outside America wasn't accidental. Inside, shoppers get access to the brand's full UK range in one place for the first time, shapewear, loungewear, menswear, and the NikeSKIMS collaboration line, rather than piecing it together online.

Why has she been so visible in Britain this year?

Because the store isn't the only reason. Kardashian's relationship with Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton became public in February, and since then the pair have been photographed together at a private members' club in the Cotswolds, walking arm in arm through Tokyo, and browsing a Vivienne Westwood store on the same trip. It's the kind of relationship that seems to generate a new set of paparazzi photos every few weeks, in a different country each time.
Not everyone is convinced it's as simple as it looks. Some entertainment outlets have reported anonymous claims that the relationship functions partly as a "showmance," a strategically timed pairing rather than a purely private one. Neither Kardashian nor Hamilton has addressed that characterisation directly, and the two have a longer history than the recent headlines suggest, having first been photographed together at a London awards show back in 2014, years before either was linked to the other romantically.
SKIMS Regent Street, at a glance
Location245-247 Regent Street, London
Size12,000 sq ft, two levels
DesignerRafael de Cárdenas
Notable featureNude sculpture by Vanessa Beecroft
SignificanceSKIMS' first flagship store outside the US
Product rangeShapewear, loungewear, menswear, NikeSKIMS

Is any of this actually connected?

Not officially. There's no suggestion the store opening and the relationship were planned to overlap, and SKIMS has been building toward a European flagship since at least 2021, when a smaller Paris pop-up tested the same visual identity on a much smaller scale. But the coincidence is hard to ignore: for a few months this year, the two most-photographed parts of Kim Kardashian's life, the brand she built and the relationship everyone's trying to decode, have both been unfolding on the same small island, a few hundred miles apart from each other at most.

For a woman whose entire career has run on being watched, Britain's had an unusually good seat this year.