“Omicron is spreading at a rate that we have never seen with any other variant.” Faced with this variant which is spreading at an unprecedented rate, the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Tuesday, December 14, all countries to use all the anti-Covid tools available to prevent health systems from failing. are quickly overwhelmed. “Seventy-seven countries have now reported cases of Omicron”, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference, “But the reality is that Omicron is probably found in most countries even though it hasn’t been detected yet.”
“We are concerned that people consider Omicron to be benign,” he stressed. Gold, “Even if Omicron causes less severe symptoms, the number of cases could once again overwhelm unprepared health systems”.
Many uncertainties hover over the nature of this new variant which has plunged the planet into panic since it was detected in November by South Africa. “We have a more transmissible virus of which we do not know very clearly the clinical course”, explained Bruce Aylward, adviser to the boss of the WHO. With the end of year holidays, “we could put ourselves in a very dangerous position”, he added, while forecasting models estimate that Omicron could become the majority in certain European countries in mid-December.
According to a study presented on Tuesday and carried out in South Africa, the two-dose vaccine from the American laboratory Pfizer is generally less effective against Omicron but protects 70% against severe cases. Thus, the head of the WHO warned the international community on Tuesday that vaccines alone will not allow any country to emerge from this crisis, and called for the use of all the anti-Covid tools that exist, such as masks , regular ventilation of interiors and respect for barrier gestures.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also noted that the emergence of Omicron prompted some countries – such as France – to offer booster doses for their entire adult population, “although we lack evidence regarding the effectiveness of boosters against this variant”. The WHO indeed fears that these programs will contribute to the accumulation of Covid vaccines by rich countries, as has been the case until now, undermining vaccination in poor countries.
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“I will be very clear: the WHO is not against booster doses. We are against inequity” vaccine, he hammered. “It’s a matter of prioritization. (…) Giving booster doses to groups at low risk of serious illness or death simply endangers the lives of those at high risk who are still waiting for their first doses.”, he insisted, stressing that 41 countries have still not succeeded in vaccinating 10% of their population and that 98 countries have not reached the 40% mark. “If we end the inequity, we end the pandemic. If we allow the inequity to continue, we allow the pandemic to move forward,” he concluded.