As case counts fall, WHO chief warns 'Covid isn’t finished'
India Today
As the number of Covid cases continues to fall, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that "Covid is not finished."
The head of the World Health Organization insisted Wednesday that “Covid isn’t finished with us,” appealing for more support to fight the pandemic after his agency reported that case counts and deaths fell worldwide over the past week.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, launching a new $23 billion campaign to fund WHO’s efforts to lead a fair rollout of Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines around the world, cautioned that “diseases know no borders” and the highly-transmissible omicron variant has shown that “any feeling of safety can change in a moment.”
WHO’s weekly epidemiological report, released late Tuesday, showed that case counts fell 17 per cent worldwide over the last week, including a 50 per cent decline in the United States, while deaths globally declined 7 per cent.
“Depending on where you live, it might feel like the Covid-19 pandemic is almost over, or, it might feel like it is at its worst,” Tedros said. “But wherever you live, Covid isn’t finished with us.”
“We know this virus will continue to evolve, but we are not defenseless,” he added. “We have the tools to prevent this disease, test for it and to treat it.”
Omicron, which is more contagious than other variants but has generally brought less-severe disease, made up nearly 97 per cent of all cases tallied by the international virus-tracking platform known as GISAID. Just over 3 per cent were of the delta variant.
In all, WHO reported more than 19 million new Covid-19 cases and just under 68,000 new deaths from January 31 to February 6. Experts say the figures are believed to greatly underestimate the real toll.
