{"id":409638,"date":"2022-01-13T04:54:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T04:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=409638"},"modified":"2022-01-13T04:54:02","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T04:54:02","slug":"omicron-less-severe-than-delta-strain-but-still-dangerous-who-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/omicron-less-severe-than-delta-strain-but-still-dangerous-who-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Omicron less severe than delta strain, but still dangerous: WHO chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

GENEVA\u00a0(SONNA)<\/strong>:The World Health Organization head warned Wednesday omicron coronavirus variant may be less severe than delta, but it remains a dangerous variant, particularly for the unvaccinated.<\/p>\n

WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said at a coronavirus webinar that the record number of 15 million COVID-19 cases reported last week were an underestimate, but the death rate remained stable and can be lowered by getting more vaccines to people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the number of patients being hospitalized is increasing in most countries, it is not at the level seen in previous waves,\u201d said Tedros.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overwhelming majority of people admitted to hospitals around the world are unvaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that while vaccines remain very effective at preventing severe disease and death, they do not fully prevent transmission.<\/p>\n

Tedros said the stable death toll was possibly due to the reduced severity of omicron, as well as widespread immunity from vaccination or previous infection.<\/p>\n

The WHO head said that the huge spike in infections driven by omicron variant is rapidly replacing delta in almost all countries.<\/p>\n

Dangerous virus<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBut let\u2019s be clear: while omicron causes less severe disease than delta, it remains a dangerous virus, particularly for those who are unvaccinated,\u201d said Tedros.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost 50,000 deaths a week is 50,000 deaths too many.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that learning to live with coronavirus does not mean the number of deaths is acceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must not allow this virus a free ride or wave the white flag, especially when so many people around the world remain unvaccinated,\u201d said Tedros.<\/p>\n

He said that in Africa, more than 85% of people are yet to receive a single dose of vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot end the acute phase of the pandemic unless we close this gap,\u201d said the WHO head.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged progress explaining that in December, the COVAX facility to combat vaccine inequity shipped more than double the number of doses it shipped in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the coming days, we expect COVAX to ship its 1 billionth vaccine dose,\u201d said Tedros, adding that some of the supply constraints faced last year are starting to ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we still have a long way to go to reach our target of vaccinating 70% of the population of every country by the middle of this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ninety countries have still not reached the 40% target, and 36 of those countries have vaccinated less than 10% of their populations.<\/p>\n

Source: Anadulu Agency<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENEVA\u00a0(SONNA):The World Health Organization head warned Wednesday omicron coronavirus variant may be less severe than delta, but it remains a dangerous variant, particularly for the unvaccinated. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said at a coronavirus webinar that the record number of 15 million COVID-19 cases reported last week were an underestimate, but the death rate remained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-409638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409640,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409638\/revisions\/409640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}