WHO warns against classifying Omicron variant as ‘mild’.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against classifying the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as “mild.” “Just like previous variants, people have to go to hospital because of Omicron, and it kills people,” WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday in Geneva.

Even though Omicron appears to lead to less severe disease than the previously prevalent Delta variant, the variant should not be classified as “mild,” he said. The wave of new infections caused by the Omicron variant is “so huge and so fast” that it is leading to an overload of the healthcare system worldwide, Tedros warned.

9.5 million cases in one week
According to WHO, nearly 9.5 million new coronavirus infections were reported worldwide last week, 71 percent more than the previous week and a new high. The actual number is likely much higher because of the drop in testing associated with the holidays, the WHO director said.

The figures are for the week of Dec. 27 to Jan. 2. In those seven days around the turn of the year, 41,000 new deaths were also reported worldwide. Overall, about 289 million CoV infections and 5.4 million deaths have been recorded since the pandemic began two years ago. In the Americas, the number of new infections doubled within that single week. In Europe, the increase was 65 percent.

Appeal for more vaccine equity
The WHO chief again denounced the actions of wealthy countries that have claimed a large share of the available CoV vaccine doses. Such action creates an ideal breeding ground for the emergence of new viral variants in countries with poorer access to vaccine doses, Tedros warned.

The WHO had set a target of 10 percent of the population in each member country being vaccinated by the end of September 2021, rising to 40 percent by the end of December 2021. This target was missed by 92 of the WHO’s 194 member states – 36 countries have not even vaccinated ten percent of their citizens.

WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove stressed that it was “very unlikely” that Omicron would be the last variant before the end of the pandemic. Given the increased risk of infection from the variant, she urged people to better follow hygiene measures, saying, “Do everything we advise you to do better, more comprehensively and more specifically.”

Each and every individual can help reduce infection rates, Maria van Kerkhove said. That included keeping their distance from people outside their household, wearing well-fitting masks correctly over their nose and mouth – not under their nose or on their chin – and staying in well-ventilated areas whenever possible. “Avoid crowded places,” van Kerkhove said. At the same time, she urged people not to panic. “Don’t give up, we will overcome this pandemic together.”