“Make no mistake, Omicron leads to hospitalizations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are swamping healthcare facilities,” Tedros said Tuesday. The corona pandemic “is far from over”.
“Omicron may be less severe on average, but the narrative that it is a harmless disease is misleading (…) and costs more lives,” said the WHO chief. Because of the strong spread, it is also likely that other variants will arise.
“The beginning of the end”?
Last week, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said the spread of the omicron variant could turn Covid-19 into an endemic disease that humanity can learn to live with. Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset also said Omicron could be “the beginning of the end” of the pandemic.
WHO expert Michael Ryan also warned against underestimating the health risks of Covid-19. “People juxtapose pandemic and endemic, but endemic malaria is killing hundreds of thousands of people, HIV is endemic, violence in our cities is endemic,” he said at an online event hosted by the World Economic Forum. “Endemic doesn’t mean good, endemic just means it’s there forever.”
“The virus may never be eradicated”
“We’re not going to get rid of the virus this year,” Ryan said. “We may never eradicate the virus. Viruses that cause pandemics tend to become part of the ecosystem.” But the public health emergency can be ended by low incidence figures with as many vaccinations as possible “so that nobody has to die”. “This will be the end of the pandemic,” assured the doctor.
Source: Nachrichten
