And it goes on and on. The world is not at the end of its troubles in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is “far from over”warned Tuesday July 12 the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a press conference in Geneva. “The virus is making a breakthrough, we must push it back”said the doctor.
“As hospitalizations and transmission of Covid-19 increase, governments must deploy tried and tested measures like mask-wearing, improved ventilation, and screening and treatment protocols”he added.
The number of Covid cases worldwide has jumped 30% in the past two weeks – a rise mainly fueled by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, said Dr Michael Ryan, Chief Emergency Officer of WHO.
As of July 11, the WHO has identified more than 552.5 million confirmed cases since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide, including 232.3 million in Europe, for more than 6.3 million deaths. According to Our World in Data, as of the same date, 61.3% of the world’s population has a complete vaccination schedule, while 66.8% has received at least one dose of vaccine.
The UN agency has thus announced that the Covid-19 pandemic will be maintained at the rank “public health emergency of international concern”the highest level of alert of the organization, after a unanimous decision of the Committee Covid-19 emergency. The latter points to the decline in screening and genomic sequencing, which make “Harder and harder” assessing the impact of Sars-CoV-2 variants, and highlights “the inadequacy of current surveillance” of the pandemic.