“Learn to living with Covid 19 cannot mean that we give this virus the freedom to move. It can’t mean that we accept nearly 50,000 deaths a week. It cannot mean that we accept an unacceptable burden on our health systems “, and on the” exhausted workers “who” come back to the front line every day “. They exist”.different scenarios on how the pandemic could go and how the acute phase could end, but it is dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are at the end of the game. On the contrary, on a global level the conditions are ideal for the emergence of more variants “. the warning issued by the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in his speech at the 150th session of the WHO Executive Board.
“To change the course of the pandemic, we need to change the conditions that are driving it. We recognize that everyone is tired of this pandemic – he observed – that people are tired of the restrictions on movement, travel and other freedoms; that economies and businesses are suffering; that many governments are walking a tightrope, trying to balance what is effective “against the virus” with what is acceptable “for society.” Each country is in a unique situation and must map out a way out of the acute pandemic with a careful and gradual approach “, he urged while acknowledging that” there are no easy answers “. if countries use the strategies and tools available today “in a complete way – he assured – we can put an end to the acute phase of the pandemic this year: we can end Covid as a global health emergency and we can do it “in 2022.
The fact remains, explained Tedros, that Omicron still poses an important challenge: “This Sunday – he recalled – marks 2 years since I declared Covid an international public health emergency, the highest level of alarm, and at the time there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths reported outside of China.. Two years later, nearly 350 million cases and over 5.5 million deaths have been reported, and we know these numbers are underestimated. On average, 100 cases were reported every 3 seconds last week, and someone lost their lives to Covid every 12 seconds. Since Omicron was first identified just 9 weeks ago, more than 80 million cases have been reported to WHO, more than reported in the whole of 2020. So far, the explosion in cases has not been accompanied by an increase. of deaths “. In light of this scenario” the questions that many are asking are: Where are we now? And when will it end? “.
Vaccination fairness will be crucial, the WHO DG reiterated. “Vaccines alone are not the golden ticket to get out of the pandemic – he repeated – But there is no way out if we do not reach our shared goal of vaccinating 70% of the population of each country by half of We have a long way to go. At present, 86 Member States in all WHO regions have not been able to meet last year’s target of vaccinating 40% of their populations and 34 Member States, the Most of them in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean region have not been able to vaccinate even 10% of their population. 85% of the African population has yet to receive a single dose of the vaccine. We simply cannot end the phase. pandemic emergency unless we close this gap. “