The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday urged the world to come together and take hard decisions needed to end the COVID-19 pandemic within the next year, reported CGTN Africa.
“2022 must be the year we end the pandemic,” Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.
The WHO chief said countries should cancel holidays, events, and gatherings as allowing crowds to gather would serve as a perfect platform for Omicron to spread.
“It would be better to cancel events now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve later,” he added.
Omicron, which was first reported in South Africa in November, has spread to more than 80 countries, dashing hopes that the worst of the pandemic is over.
The WHO has already warned the heavily mutated variant is spreading at an unprecedented rate.
Tedros warned that the Omicron variant appears to have the ability to double the infections every 1.5 to three days. In addition to increased transmissibility, early data has shown signs of worrying resistance to vaccines.
More than 3.3 million people have lost their lives to COVID-19 this year.
The WHO chief urged countries to end vaccine inequity, by ensuring 70% of the population of every country is vaccinated by the middle of next year.
In related news, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told Monday’s press conference that it was too early to conclude that Omicron is a milder variant than other coronavirus variants.
She warned that South Africa and other places reporting lower hospitalization rates from Omicron had been hit hard in earlier waves, so many of the Omicron cases may have been reinfections.
Swaminathan said the variant may be behaving differently in people with prior immunity.
Amid growing concern over Omicron, many countries are planning to roll out vaccine booster shots to populations. But the WHO has repeatedly voiced concern that such booster vaccine programs could deepen already glaring inequity in vaccine access between wealthy and poorer countries.
