There is still hope that the pandemic may fade next year, although experts say vaccine disparities must be addressed.
in two years, as of now omicronFueled by the COVID crisis, there is still hope that the pandemic may vanish in 2022 – although experts say vaccine inequalities must be addressed.
It may seem like a distant reality, as countries impose fresh ban To overcome the rapidly spreading new types and growing cases and the hopeless feeling of deja vu.
“We are facing another very difficult winter,” the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said last week.
But health experts say we are far better equipped to tackle the pandemic than we were a year ago, with safe and large-scale effective vaccines and new treatments available.
“We have the tools that can bring (the pandemic) to its knees,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the top WHO expert on the COVID crisis, told reporters this month.
“We have the power to end it in 2022,” she insisted.
But, he said, they must be used in the right way.
clear inequality
A year after the first vaccine hit the market, approximately 8.5 billion doses have been administered globally.
And the world is on track to produce about 24 billion doses by June – more than enough for everyone on the planet.
but shining uneven vaccine access This means that as many rich countries have already been vaccinated, additional doses are given to vulnerable people, and health workers in many poorer countries are still waiting for the first time.
Read more: WHO criticizes vaccine imbalance between rich, poor countries
United Nations data shows that about 67 percent of people in high-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose, but 10 percent in low-income countries have not.
That imbalance, which the WHO has dubbed a moral outcry, risks deepening as many countries rush to provide an extra dose of response to Omicron.
Preliminary data indicates that the heavily-mutated version, which has sparked lightning around the world since it was first discovered in southern Africa last month, is more resistant to vaccines than previous strains.
While the boosters seem to be pushing safety levels back up, WHO insists the pandemic is ending, the priority should remain for vulnerable people everywhere to receive the first dose.
myopic’
Experts have warned that the unabated spread of Covid in some places increases the chances of new, more dangerous forms emerging.
So even if rich countries roll out third shotThe world is not safe unless everyone has some degree of immunity.
“No country can lead the way out of the pandemic,” Tedros said last week.
“The blanket booster program is likely to last for a long time rather than end the pandemic.” Omicron’s emergence is proof of that, said WHO’s head of emergencies Michael Ryan AFP,
“The virus has taken the opportunity to evolve.” Gautam Menon, professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University in India, agreed that it is in the best interest of rich countries to ensure that poor countries also get jobs.
“It would be shortsighted to assume that just by vaccinating themselves they got rid of the problem.”
‘furniture part’
Ryan suggested that increased vaccination should get us to a point where Covid “settles into a pattern that is less disruptive”.
But he warned that if the world fails to address imbalances in vaccine access, the worst could still emerge.
A nightmare scenario leaves the Covid pandemic spiraling out of control amid a steady barrage of new forms, even as a different strain gives rise to a parallel pandemic.
Confusion and propaganda will undermine trust in officials and science, as health systems collapse and political turmoil begins.
According to Ryan, this is one of many “plausible” scenarios.
“The double-pandemic is of particular concern, because we have one virus causing a pandemic right now, and many others are lined up.”
But better global vaccine coverage could mean that Covid – although unlikely to disappear completely – will become a largely controlled endemic disease, with seasonal outbreaks that we will learn to live with like the flu, experts say. Is said.
It would basically “become part of the furniture”, explained Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine. AFP,
overwhelmed hospital
But we are not there yet.
Experts caution against too much optimism about early signs that Omicron causes less severe disease than previous strains, indicating it is spreading so rapidly that it is still affecting health systems. could.
Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said, “When you have so many, many infections, even if it’s less severe … (hospitals) are going to be very stressed.” NBC News Last week.
That’s a disappointing prospect two years after the virus first emerged in China.
Long queues of people to see and search for intubated patients in overcrowded hospitals oxygen Have never stopped for loved ones.
Images of improvised funeral pyres being burnt in delta-hit India have symbolized the human cost of the pandemic.
Officially, about 5.5 million people died around the world, although the actual toll is likely to be several times higher.
All vaccine hesitation can add to that toll.
In the United States, which remains the worst-affected country with more than 800,000 deaths, a steady stream of obituaries faceoffcovid The Twitter account includes many people who did not have a jab.
“Amanda, a 36-year-old math teacher in Kentucky. Chris, a 34-year-old high school football coach in Kansas. A 40-year-old 7th grade teacher in Cherry, Illinois. Everyone had influence in their communities,” a recent post Read.
“All deeply loved. All vaccinated.”
header image: A man wearing a protective face mask depicts a virus outside a regional science center, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Oldham, Britain, on August 3, 2020. – Reuters