The coronavirus pandemic is by no means over, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, emphasised again Sunday as he warned about relaxed public health measures and monitoring, the Daily News reported in an article this week.
“This virus has surprised us at every turn — a storm that has torn through communities again and again, and we still can’t predict its path, or its intensity,” Tedros said at the opening of the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva. “We lower our guard at our peril.”
Cases may be declining worldwide, especially since the omicron wave peaked earlier this year, but that does not mean the pandemic is over, he said.
“There’s no question we have made progress, of course we have: 60% of the world’s population is vaccinated, helping to reduce hospitalisations and deaths, allowing health systems to cope, and societies to reopen,” he said. “But it’s not over anywhere until it’s over everywhere.”
The news article noted several factors that leave the world vulnerable. With testing on the downswing and a lack of genetic sequencing, there is no way to see what the virus is doing, for one. And having 1 billion people unvaccinated in lower-income countries means almost as many opportunities for more variants to arise. Testing rates have plummeted, and yet the number of confirmed, recorded, cases are rising anyway, the Director-General observed.
“Increasing transmission means more deaths, especially among the unvaccinated, and more risk of a new variant emerging,” he said. “Declining testing and sequencing mean we are blinding ourselves to the evolution of the virus.”
The Director-General issued a similar warning almost exactly a year ago, in May 2021, calling it a “monumental error” to treat the coronavirus pandemic as if it were over at that stage.
In January of this year, he warned, again, that there is no pandemic “endgame,” but there could be an end to the acute phase, if the world meets some key public health targets.
Since he spoke last May, the death toll has topped 6 million worldwide and 1 million in the U.S. alone. WHO’s estimate is closer to 15 million – worldwide.
New omicron variants have indeed emerged, and testing and vaccination have not kept pace, the Director-General noted on Sunday. At the same time, people are ripping off masks and flocking to crowded indoor gatherings.
“In many countries, all restrictions have been lifted, and life looks much like it did before the pandemic. So, is it over? No, it most certainly is not over, he said.”
Reported cases are increasing in nearly 70 countries worldwide, even as testing rates have plummeted, he noted. Just 57 countries, mainly the wealthiest, have vaccinated 70% of their population.
Reasons range from a lack of political will, gaps in operational or financial capacity – and vaccine hesitancy fueled by misinformation and disinformation, he said.
“The pandemic will not magically disappear,” he said. “But we can end it. We have the knowledge. We have the tools. Science has given us the upper hand.”
COVID is not a “one and done” thing – far from it, Smart News reported on Sunday.
Those who are unvaccinated, and don’t mask, can expect to come down with COVID once a year or so – once every other year for the unvaccinated who regularly use a “good quality” mask in public, according to modeling by drug developer Fractal Therapeutics.
As for the vaccinated, both masked and unmasked, they can expect to get COVID “a lot less frequently,” though it’s impossible to say just how often, said Arijit Chakravarty, a COVID researcher and Fractal Therapeutics CEO.
“The bottom line is if you are planning not to use a mask and live your life as usual, expect to get infected at least once a year, if not more,” he said. “If you’re planning to mask everywhere but at home, that probably cuts the risk in half.”
The team’s latest model accounts for waning immunity from vaccines and prior infection, and a certain degree of immune evasion, as has been increasingly seen in Omicron subvariants. It also assumes that with each round of infection, a person gains some measure of protection against the sometimes-deadly virus, albeit temporary.
However, it does not account for the possible evolution of a variant that completely evades immunity, he cautioned.
The modeling focuses on the unvaccinated because “vaccines are not currently providing protection against infection” for the majority of the population, though they are providing protection against severe illness and death, Chakravarty said.
Anguilla’s Ministry of Health reminds residents to reduce the risk of infection by utilising the following measures:
• Persons with underlying conditions for severe COVID-19 complications and who have not been vaccinated are advised to avoid social gatherings.
• Wear masks in areas where there is no natural ventilation and by vulnerable persons at risk of severe COVID-19 complications.
• If you are unwell, get tested.
• Practice hygienic measures such as the washing of hands and cleaning of high-touch surfaces.
Covid Dashboard Update for Anguilla as of 6:00am on May 23
New Recoveries:100
New Cases: 87
Active: 52
New Deaths:0
Current Isolation Unit: 0
