The number of confirmed covid-19 cases in the world exceeded 300 million! WHO Warns: Omi kerong is not moderate

Discussion and research about how serious the Amikerron strain is has been going on for some time.

On the 6th local time, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros said that although the severity of the Olmiqueron strain seems to be less serious than the Delta strain, especially in the vaccinated population, this does not mean that the severity of the Omiljun strain should be classified as "mild".

Tedros called on governments and pharmaceutical companies to share health tools globally to end the deaths and devastation caused by outbreaks.

According to the latest statistics from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of January 7, Beijing time, the global cumulative number of confirmed covid-19 cases exceeded 300 million, and the number of deaths was 5472694. Among them, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States exceeded 58.48 million, and the cumulative number of deaths was 830,000, which is the largest number of confirmed cases and deaths of new crown pneumonia in the world.

Huang Yanzhong, senior researcher of global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, professor of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University and director of the Global Health Research Center, said in an interview with First Financial Reporter: "Now is a more critical period, the Olmiqueron strain has become a dominant strain, although we know that its toxicity is not as high as the Delta strain, but its chance of infection will increase significantly." ”

Expert: Expect an explosive growth in the West in the coming weeks

Tedros said the highest number of COVID-19 cases reported to date last week. But the figures are clearly underestimated, as the reported figures do not reflect the backlog of tests around the holidays, the number of unregistered positive self-tests, and the many cases missed by burdensome surveillance systems around the world.

Data released by the WHO on the 6th showed that the total number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases reported globally in the past seven days increased by 71% compared with the number of new confirmed cases in the previous week. In severe COVID-19 cases worldwide, 90% of patients are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

As of the WHO's last technical briefing in 2021, the Aumecreon strain has appeared in 110 countries and regions around the world.

The WHO considers that the available evidence is consistent in that the Aomikron strain has a significant transmissibility advantage over delta strains. In countries where community transmission of the Olmikron strain occurs, the rate of transmission is significantly faster than that of delta strains, with a doubling time of 2 to 3 days. The WHO also believes that the Omikeron strain will replace the Delta strain in early 2022 as the main spreading variant of the new crown virus in Europe.

The WHO also noted that south Africa, where the Omiljun strain was first reported, has recently seen a decline in case growth, but the exact reasons are unclear.

Janet Diaz, head of clinical management at the WHO, said at the press conference on the 6th that early studies have shown that compared with the Delta strain, the risk of hospitalization caused by the Omilton strain is reduced, and the serious risk of the strain for young and old people seems to have decreased, but she did not share further details of the study.

Previously, data from earlier studies in South Africa, the United Kingdom and Denmark suggested that the Opmiqueron strain caused a lower risk of hospitalization than the Delta strain.

For example, early data reported in Scotland showed that the Olmiqueron strain caused hospitalizations two-thirds lower than Delta. In Denmark, 0.6% of cases infected with the Omikejung strain required hospitalization, while the hospitalization rate for cases infected with other variants was 1.6%.

However, the WHO has repeatedly emphasized that hospitalization rate is only one of the indicators of clinical severity, and other indicators include whether oxygen is needed, respirator use and fatality rate. However, current data are insufficient to determine the clinical severity of this strain.

Tedros stressed this time that like the previous mutant strains, the Omikeron strain is hospitalizing people and killing people.

"In fact, the surge in cases caused by this mutant strain is so massive and rapid that health systems around the world are overwhelmed: hospitals are becoming increasingly crowded and medical staff are understaffed, which has led not only to a large number of preventable COVID-19 deaths, but also to the loss of other patients due to lack of timely care." Tedros said.

Huang Yanzhong told the first financial reporter that the existing two-shot vaccine has less effect on preventing infection, and it is expected that in the next few weeks or even two or three months, there will be an explosive growth in western countries such as the United States, and almost all Americans may be exposed to the risk of infection.

"So, while we think that after the third injection, the chance of infection and the chance of becoming severe will decrease, if the number of infections increases significantly, the impact on the health care system will be very large." He said.

Low-income countries have low vaccination rates

The WHO also said the overall risk associated with the Omiljung strain remains very high, particularly for vulnerable populations, especially in countries with low vaccination rates.

The WHO believes that while the clinical severity of the disease caused by the Aumequeron strain is unclear, even if the risk of hospitalization caused by the strain is lower than that of the Delta strain, the potential immune escape and higher transmission capacity may lead to a further surge in the number of cases of Omiljun infection, and the medical demand is expected to increase, placing a burden on the health system.

According to WHO data, the world's major economies have received 80% of covid-19 vaccines, while low-income countries have received only 0.6% of vaccines. The WHO believes that in these countries, because most people are not vaccinated, new variants like the Omiljun strain are likely to continue to emerge.

The current UN goal is that by mid-2022, at least 70 per cent of every country's population must be vaccinated.

To achieve this, at least 11 billion doses of vaccine will be needed. Currently, 8 billion doses of vaccine have been vaccinated worldwide. Approximately 1.5 billion doses of vaccine are produced worldwide every month.

At the current rate of vaccine rollout, 109 countries will miss out on the opportunity to fully vaccinate 70 percent of their population by early July 2022, meaning some countries are moving towards a fourth vaccination of citizens, while others don't even have enough conventional supplies to vaccinate health workers and those at highest risk, Tedros said.

Tedros said it is important to effectively share vaccines that are being produced, while adopting a "never repeat the same mistakes" approach to outbreak preparations and vaccine production, so that once the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines are on the market, they will be produced fairly. (The journalist Gao Gao also contributed to this article)