{"id":755915,"date":"2022-01-18T21:03:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T21:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/18\/covid-pandemic-nowhere-near-over-says-who-chief\/"},"modified":"2022-01-18T21:03:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T21:03:00","slug":"covid-pandemic-nowhere-near-over-says-who-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/18\/covid-pandemic-nowhere-near-over-says-who-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid pandemic &#039;nowhere near over&#039; says WHO chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/cb20fb13-e5c0-59e7-9480-8e21dfeb7fc1&#038;operation=CROP&#038;offset=0x415&#038;resize=7952x4473.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div><!--sse--><\/p>\n<p>Geneva &#8211; The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, the World Health Organization chief said Tuesday, cautioning against a narrative that the fast-spreading Omicron variant is risk-free.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This pandemic is nowhere near over,&#8221; Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters from WHO&#8217;s headquarters in Geneva.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Tedros warned against dismissing as mild the coronavirus variant Omicron, which has spread like wildfire around the globe since it was first detected in southern Africa in November.<\/p>\n<p>The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is much more contagious than previous strains but seems to cause less serious disease.<\/p>\n<p>That has triggered a debate on the virus passing from being a pandemic to becoming endemic &#8212; with the implication that the danger will have passed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"RelatedArticlescss__StyledRelatedArticles-sc-10g88yu-0 ezIKFV\">\n<h2><span>MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>But the WHO has warned that the sheer numbers of people infected will mean many vulnerable people are still falling seriously ill and dying.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Omicron may be less severe, on average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading,&#8221; Tedros said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Make no mistake: Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>He said there were indications that the Omicron-fuelled surge of Covid cases may have peaked in some countries.<\/p>\n<p>This, he said, &#8220;gives hope that the worst of this latest wave is done with, but no country is out of the woods yet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tedros said there was an urgent need to remove the pressure building on health systems, especially in countries that still have low vaccination coverage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8220;Now is not the time to give up and wave the white flag,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can still significantly reduce the impact of the current wave by sharing and using health tools effectively, and implementing public health and social measures that we know work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Data indicate that existing Covid vaccines are less effective in protecting against Omicron transmission than against previous strains.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>But Tedros stressed it remained vital to ensure broader, more equitable access to the jabs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Vaccines may be less effective at preventing infection and transmission of Omicron than they were for previous variants, but they still are exceptionally good at preventing serious disease and death,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Health experts warn that allowing Covid to spread unabated in some places dramatically increases the chance of new, more dangerous variants emerging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8220;With the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge,&#8221; Tedros cautioned.<\/p>\n<p><strong id=\"strong-1934714840e68c8556ab0962d8e1e0ff\">AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--\/sse--><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Geneva &#8211; The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, the World Health Organization chief said Tuesday, cautioning against a narrative that the fast-spreading Omicron variant is risk-free. &#8220;This pandemic is nowhere near over,&#8221; Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters from WHO&#8217;s headquarters in Geneva. Tedros warned against dismissing as mild the coronavirus variant Omicron, which has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":755916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}