WHO issues stern warning about Omicron

 

Global injuries set new records, and the average death rate does not bode well

Corona injuries rose to 15 million cases worldwide in one week, with the rapid spread of the Omicron mutant, becoming the dominant strain of the epidemic, succeeding the Delta variant.

For his part, the Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: 

"We know that this is an underestimate of the real number."

In turn, the WHO's technical lead for COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, noted that the sheer volume of cases puts a strain on health care systems. 

"Although Omicron is less severe than Delta, it still drives many patients to hospitalization, as well as deaths," she said, according to CNBC.

This comes, while the United States witnessed the largest jump in cases, as 4.6 million new infections were reported during the week to Sunday, an increase of 73% from the previous week, compared to a global increase of 55% in cases during the same period, according to the WHO's weekly epidemiological report. Global, which was published last Tuesday.

Despite the decline in the mortality rate as a percentage of injuries, which was justified by the head of the World Health Organization, due to a group of reasons, which may include the low intensity of oomicron compared to delta, and the spread of immunity from vaccines and previous infections. 

But he added that the death rate remains unsustainably high, averaging about 48,000 deaths per week, which has not fluctuated much since October.

Kerkhove described the large spread of Omicron as "off the charts", with previous strains reaching their peak after several months, and not as is currently happening.

The World Health Organization said in the epidemiological report that of the more than 357,000 cases that were sequenced in the past 30 days, nearly 59 percent of them were diagnosed with "Omicron".

The World Health Organization has warned that the data may not fully show the extent of Omicron due to delays in reporting and limitation of sequencing in some countries.

According to the report, Omicron has a shorter doubling time than other variants, which means the number of days it takes for cases to multiply

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and can easily evade prior immunity, giving it an advantage over other variants.

Kerkhove said that nothing is inevitable about the Corona virus and how it spreads, but it is necessary to adhere to the measures that we currently have, which are vaccination, wearing masks, maintaining a policy of compliance, ventilation, and avoiding crowds.

She expected the virus to continue to evolve to become more powerful and either more or less severe, and outbreaks of other viruses would sometimes occur at the same time as cases of Covid.

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