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Two years later, while the Omicron-fueled Covid crisis rages, there is still hope that the pandemic will fade out by 2022, however scientists stress gaping immunisation disparities must be addressed.
As countries apply new limitations to combat the rapidly spreading new variants and increasing cases, it may appear to be a far-off reality, and a gloomy sense of déjà vu sets in.
Last Monday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus remarked, “We’re facing another really difficult winter.”
But, according to health experts, we are significantly better poised to contain the epidemic now than we were a year ago, thanks to growing inventories of safe and generally effective vaccines and novel therapies.
“We have the instruments to knock (the epidemic) to its knees,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s senior Covid expert, told reporters earlier this month.
“In 2022, we have the capacity to put an end to it,” she insisted.
She did stress, though, that they must be utilised correctly.
egregious inequity
Around 8.5 billion doses have been administered globally in the year since the initial vaccines were released.
By June, the world will have produced over 24 billion doses, which is more than enough for everyone on the planet.
However, because of conspicuously unequal vaccine access, vulnerable people and health professionals in many poorer countries are still waiting for their first jab, even while many wealthier nations roll out additional doses to the already vaccinated.
According to UN statistics, about 67 percent of people in high-income nations have received at least one vaccine shot, whereas just about 10% of those in low-income countries have.
As many governments hurry to roll out higher dosages in response to Omicron, this disparity, which the WHO has labelled a moral outrage, risks deteriorating further.
According to preliminary studies, the drastically changed strain, which has sped throughout the world since its discovery in southern Africa last month, looks to be more vaccine resistant than earlier variants.
Myopic’
Experts warn that allowing Covid to proliferate unchecked in some areas greatly increases the risk of new, more hazardous forms arising.
Even if wealthy countries continue to fire third shots, the globe will not be safe until everyone has some level of immunity.
Last Thursday, Tedros declared, “No country can boost its way out of the pandemic.”
“Blanket booster programmes are more likely to extend the pandemic than to bring it to an end.”
The appearance of Omicron is proof of this, according to WHO emergency chief Michael Ryan.
“The virus seized the opportunity.”
Professor Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in India agreed that it was in the best interests of wealthier countries to guarantee that poorer countries get vaccines as well.
“Believing that simply being vaccinated will fix the problem is foolish.”
‘It’s a piece of furniture,’ says the character.
Covid “settles into a less disruptive rhythm” as a result of higher vaccination, according to Ryan.
He does caution, though, that the worst is yet to come if the world fails to address inequities in vaccination availability.
According to Ryan, this is one of numerous “plausible” situations.
“The double-pandemic one is particularly concerning, because we currently have one virus creating a pandemic and many more on the horizon.”
Experts believe that, while Covid will not go away completely, it will become a mostly managed endemic disease with milder seasonal outbreaks that we will learn to live with, similar to the flu.
According to Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California in Irvine, it will “essentially become part of the furniture.”
Hospitals that are already overburdened
But we’re not there yet.
Experts warn against getting too excited about early signals that Omicron produces less severe disease than earlier strains, pointing out that it is spreading so quickly that health systems may be overwhelmed.
Last week, top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told NBC News that “when you have so many, many diseases, even if they are less severe… (hospitals) are going to be highly stressed.”
Two years after the virus first appeared in China, that is a dismal scenario.
Long lines of people racing to acquire oxygen for loved ones and intubated patients in packed hospitals have never stopped.
The pandemic’s human cost has been highlighted by images of makeshift funeral pyres burning throughout a Delta-affected India.
The continual trickle of short obituaries on the FacesOfCovid Twitter account include individuals who did not have the jab in the United States, which remains the worst-affected country with almost 800,000 deaths.
“Amanda is a 36-year-old Kentucky math teacher. Chris, a 34-year-old Kansas high school football coach. Cherie is a 40-year-old Illinois 7th-grade reading teacher. All of them have an impact in their own areas “take a look at a recent blog post
