COVID-19 pandemic 'far from over', WHO warns | Coronavirus
“As the virus breaks through, we must push it back,” World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said (Archives).
The coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 is “far from over,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday. /p>
As the virus breaks through, we must push it back, Dr. Tedros said, adding: The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over.
“As hospitalizations and transmission of COVID-19 increase, governments must deploy tried and tested measures like mask-wearing, improved ventilation, and screening and prevention protocols. treatment.
—Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director of the World Health Organization
The number of COVID cases worldwide has jumped 30% in the past two weeks – a rise mainly fueled by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, said Dr. Michael Ryan, Chief of WHO Emergencies, during the press conference.
As of July 11, WHO lists more than 552.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 232.3 million in Europe, for more than 6.3 million deaths since the start of the pandemic.
According to Our World in Data, as of the same date, 61.3% of the world's population has a complete immunization schedule, while 66.8% has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Dr Ryan also pointed to the lifting of health measures and social distancing, as well as the drop in screenings, which complicate the monitoring of the pandemic.
“The virus continues to circulate freely, and states are not effectively distributing the disease burden according to their capabilities, both for hospitalizations for severe cases and the growing number of people in post-COVID disease, often called COVID long.
—Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director of the World Health Organization
The two WHO leaders spoke on the sidelines of WHO's release of the results of the latest COVID-19 Emergency Committee meeting, which took place on Friday last.
The UN agency has thus announced that the COVID-19 pandemic will be maintained as a public health emergency of international concern, the highest degree alert from the organization, following a unanimous decision of the Committee.
The Committee points to the decline in screening and genomic sequencing, which increasingly make difficult to assess the impact of COVID-19 variants, and highlight the inadequacy of current pandemic surveillance.
The Committee notes including the lack of appropriate public health measures in place in regions affected by a resurgence of cases.
The European branch of the health agency, for his part, a recom Mandated a second booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine for vulnerable people on Tuesday, as nearly 7 million cases have been reported on the continent in the past 7 days.
