The leading health specialists of the World Health Organization have opposing viewpoints.
The World Health Organization’s top officials are split this week on whether the dominance of the Omicron variety heralds the end of the coronavirus epidemic.
On Monday, WHO’s director-general warned against presuming the pandemic was nearing its endgame, saying it’s dangerous to believe Omicron is the final form.
On the contrary, global circumstances are ripe for new options to develop, as stated by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated during a press conference in Geneva.
He added there are several possibilities for how the epidemic may unfold. And how the acute period can come to an end. The doctor believes it is risky to presume that Omicron will be the last version or that we have reached the endgame.
His warning came as health professionals and commentators speculated that the more infectious but clearly milder Omicron variety may herald the end of the pandemic’s acute phase.
Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, told Agence France-Presse the day before that it’s likely that the area is going towards a type of pandemic finale.
Given how swiftly Omicron is spreading over the globe, Kluge believes there will be quite some weeks and months of worldwide immunity resulting from both infections and vaccinations, as well as reduced seasonality.
Kluge noted that he expects a period of calm before COVID-19 returns towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic.
According to Reuters, almost 115 million COVID infections have been detected among Europe’s 750 million citizens.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says the predominant strain of the virus in most European countries is Omicron, which is considered to cause less severe illness than the Delta variation but may still result in hospitalization and death.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious-disease specialist in the United States, also offered a more optimistic view for Americans, stating on Sunday that he was sure as you can be that Omicron will peak in most states by mid-February.
He told ABC’s “This Week” that the epidemic would begin to turn around in the United States as daily cases began to diminish.
On Monday, the United States reported over 222,000 COVID-19 infections, almost 1 1/2 weeks after the weekly average of daily documented cases exceeded 800,000. Omicron is currently present in most COVID cases in the United States.
Nonetheless, all three experts — Tedros, Kluge, and Fauci — recommended prudence and cautions.
Kluge told AFP that there’s a lot of discussion about endemic, and it’s possible to foresee what will happen during the endemic period.
This virus has shocked us many times, so we must be extremely cautious, as he continued.
Tedros did provide some optimism, stating that if the world accomplished WHO’s targets of vaccinating 70% of each country’s population and rigorously watching the virus’s transmission to identify new variations, COVID-19 might no longer be a global health emergency in 2022.
WHO has long criticized the massive disparity in vaccination access between poor and affluent nations. Tedros consistently cautioned that failing to vaccinate vast populations throughout the globe would endanger any nation’s growth.
Tedros added that we would be living with COVID for the foreseeable future. We will need to learn how to manage it via a sustained and integrated system for acute respiratory infections, which will offer a foundation for future pandemic preparation.
“But learning to live with COVID cannot mean that we give this virus a free ride. It cannot mean that we accept almost 50,000 deaths a week from a preventable and treatable disease.”
