World Health Organization (WHO) Chief says that the idea of Omicron as a mild illness is misleading.
Akankshya Mukherjee, Mumbai Uncensored, 19th January 2022 :
The Chief of World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautions citizens around the world that assuming the new variant, Omicron which has significantly milder symptoms has eliminated the threat posed by the virus. This news comes to the room with the rising number of cases in countries like Germany, France and European countries. France has close to half a million cases while Germany records more than 100,000 new cases. The Chief of WHO speaks directly from the headquarters informs that there are over 18 million cases of the infection in the past one week. The variant tends to be less severe and but considering it as a mild disease is a misleading information as Omicron has caused hospitalization and deaths as wells so far.
He also warns the Global Leaders that with the growth of Omicron, globally a new variant can be expected hence tracking of cases coming remains essential. He also mentions the main cause of concern right now is for the countries with low vaccination rates, as unvaccinated ones are more prone towards the risk of severe illness and even death if remained unvaccinated.
The new coronavirus infection has been growing and has become the cause of concern for institutions like schools, hospitals and medical faculties as vaccination among school children right now is unmanageable in countries such as France, it has been really hard to get an appointment for the same.
It has been observed that the variant, Omicron has been spreading like wildfire across the globe, it was first found in South Africa in 2021. So far as understood, Omicron is highly mutated variant of COVID 19, it is viewed as more contagious but it appears it causes less serious infection. This has caused to debate between Scientists and Experts if the SARS-CoV 2 virus is about to enter an endemic stage from the pandemic phase. Also, such a change could mean the danger posed by the virus would seem unpleasant.
WHO continues to stress upon the fact that Omicron may lead to being contagious. The WHO emergencies director, Michael Ryan says that “there have been high cases, with no regard to the severity of the variant, it however may lead to inevitable hospitalizations and deaths”. According to the WHO Chief, the new variant driven waves have already caused reached high peak in some countries. The WHO Technical lead on COVID 19, Maria Van Kerkhove points out that every week 45,000 deaths are being reported by the virus, she further adds “this should not be happening”.
The WHO Chief Scientist, Soumya Swaminathan says that “Against Omicron, many of the vaccines have shown a reduction in efficacy against infection and that’s why we see a lot of breakthrough infections (cases in vaccinated individuals) but these are mostly not resulting in severe disease, so that’s a positive”. She further adds that the agency is looking if booster shots can be given to the citizens and how countries are planning upon this but the current focus is on getting people vaccinated and if not vaccination at least primary doses to the ones not vaccinated yet.
