The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, considered it "premature" to declare a victory against COVID-19 and abandon efforts to stop the transmission of the virus. He said this during a press conference held in Geneva, Switzerland.
"It is premature for any country to capitulate or declare itself victorious," emphasized the official, concerned about the increase in cases, in a context in which many countries seek to end all types of restrictions. For example, Denmark, which lifted them despite registering a record number of cases of the disease.
For his part, the WHO Emergency Director, Michael Ryan, also expressed his fear that some countries want to imitate governments that eliminate restrictions due to political pressure, ignoring their epidemiological situation and their vaccine coverage.
Along the same lines, Maria Van Kerkhove, in charge of the fight against COVID-19 at the WHO, warned about an early relaxation of prevention measures. "We call for caution, as many countries have not yet reached the Omicron peak. Many countries have a low level of vaccine coverage," she said.
Dr. Tedros insisted: "We are concerned about the fact that a story has been established in certain countries that thanks to vaccines and due to the high contagiousness of Omicron and its lower severity, it is not possible to prevent contagion." And He stressed: "This could not be further from the truth."
"We do not ask countries to reinstate confinements, but we call on them to protect their population using all available means and not just vaccines," said the senior WHO official.
What about the new BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron?
Moments before the press conference, Dr. Boris Pavlin of the WHO COVID-19 Response Team said that the emerging BA.2 form of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus does not appear to be more severe than the original BA form. 1.
“The vaccines also continue to provide similar protection against different forms of Omicron,” Pavlin added.
His comments come at a time when the BA.2 sub-lineage is beginning to replace the more common "original" Omicron sub-variant in countries like Denmark.
