"This pandemic is by no means over, and with Omicron's tremendous growth globally, new variants are likely to emerge." This was stated by WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the briefing on Covid from Geneva.
"Omicron may be less severe on average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading, harms the overall 'pandemic' response and costs more lives,” he added.
"In some countries, Covid cases appear to have peaked, which gives hope that the worst of this latest wave is over, but no country is off the hook yet," warned the WHO number one.
Because the virus "is circulating too intensely" and risks affecting the "many still vulnerable people". As for the impact of Omicron, he recalled, "it is causing hospitalizations and deaths and even less serious cases are flooding health facilities". "For many countries the next few weeks will be critical," especially for those with "low vaccination rates," he warned.
THE DATA - To date, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused the deaths of at least 5,543,637 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP from official sources.
In absolute terms, the countries with the highest number of deaths are the United States (851,730 deaths), Brazil (621,166), India (486,761) and Russia (322,678).
The total budget drawn up by Johns Hopkins University also shows a total of more than 5.5 million, or 5,547,477.
The WHO estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than that officially recorded.
(Unioneonline / vl)
