WHO: tsunami of cases is saturating health systems around the world

The current wave of COVID-19 infections, with record numbers exceeding two million daily cases, is causing enormous pressure on health networks around the planet, warned the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) , Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“The tsunami of cases is so large and fast that it has saturated health systems around the world,” said Tedros, who insisted that the definitive conclusion should not be reached that the omicron variant, responsible for many infections, is less dangerous.

“It appears to be less serious than delta, especially in vaccinated people, but it should not be categorized as ‘mild’, because it is also causing hospitalizations and is killing,” warned the Ethiopian expert.

Tedros indicated that the records of daily infections surely do not reflect the true scope of the current wave, since the official figures do not reflect the positives that many people have self-diagnosed at home, while many saturated health networks have not been able to diagnose all the suspects.

For the year that begins, Tedros insisted that the objective should be to ensure that 70% of the population of all countries is vaccinated, although he warned that at the current rate more than a hundred territories will not reach that goal, the same so that at the end of 2021 the objective of 40% was not achieved.

“Inequality in vaccines kills people, destroys jobs and harms the global economic recovery,” said Tedros, who lamented that “some countries are already giving their citizens a fourth dose while others do not have enough supplies to immunize their health workers and risk groups ”.

“Distributing vaccines and more booster vaccines in a small number of countries will not end the pandemic while other billions of people remain completely unprotected,” warned the head of the WHO.