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December 31, 2021

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WHO chief warns of COVID ‘tsunami’

Source: AFP | 00:24 UTC+8 December 31, 2021 | Print Edition

A COVID “tsunami” threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as record surges fuelled by the Omicron variant dampened New Year celebrations around the world once again.

Governments are walking a tightrope between anti-virus restrictions and the need to keep societies and economies open, as the highly transmissible variant drove cases to levels never seen before in the United States, Britain, France and Denmark.

The blistering surge was illustrated by a tally of 6.55 million new infections reported globally in the week ending on Tuesday, the highest the figure has been since the WHO declared a COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

“I am highly concerned that Omicron, being more transmissible, circulating at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers, and health systems on the brink of collapse.”

The variant has already started to overwhelm some hospitals in the US, the hardest-hit nation where the seven-day average of new cases hit 265,427, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Harvard epidemiologist and immunologist Michael Mina tweeted that the count was likely just the “tip of the iceberg” with the true number likely far higher because of a shortage of tests.

But there was some hope as data indicated a decoupling of the number of cases and hospitalizations.

“We should not become complacent,” top US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said, but “all indications point to a lesser severity of Omicron.”

Millions around the world will again welcome a new year in the shadow of the pandemic, which is known to have killed more than 5.4 million people so far, with festivities dampened or canceled in many countries.

Greece on Wednesday banned music in bars and restaurants to try and limit New Year’s Eve parties, with public events already canceled.

The mayor of Mexico’s capital has canceled the city’s massive New Year’s Eve celebrations after a spike in cases.

Nation


 

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