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In Venice, Italy, on April 26, 2021, a couple enjoys aperitivo evening beverages while sitting at a bar as much of the country becomes a ‘yellow zone,’ reducing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions and enabling bars and restaurants to serve customers at outdoor tables. Reuters/Manuel Silvestri The World Health Organization is advising “great care” in countries around the world before reducing public health restrictions, as the epidemic rages in areas with low vaccination rates, putting other regions at risk of variant spread. Countries with high vaccination rates, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have gradually eased public health restrictions, while others have been battling the pandemic’s worst outbreaks from its inception. At a press conference on Wednesday, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Covid-19 technical director, said, “We’re watching this viral transmission all over the world and we’re seeing rapid increases in far too many nations right now.” Covid cases increased by 33% in the European region in the last week, but high vaccination rates may give the impression that the pandemic is ending, according to WHO officials. “This isn’t a flat curve; it’s one that’s getting steeper. Making the idea that because we’re opening up because of vaccines, transmission won’t rise is a false premise; transmission will increase when you open up “WHO’s Health Emergencies Program executive director, Dr. Mike Ryan, stated. “There are ramifications.” The delta variety, which previously dominated in the United Kingdom, is now the most common strain in the United States. The variation is more transmissible and may cause more severe sickness, according to WHO scientists, however additional research is needed to prove this. Because the virus is continuously mutating and changing, Ryan hopes we don’t witness a return to overburdened hospitals and fatigued health professionals in Europe. He warned that countries must be “very cautious” in order to maintain the progress they’ve made in combatting the pandemic. “I think right now, wherever in the world, the concept that everyone is safe and it’s Kumbaya and everything is back to normal is a really hazardous assumption,” Ryan added. There have been around 185 million verified Covid cases and 4 million fatalities worldwide, according to WHO experts, which is certainly an undercount. According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, several nations with high immunization rates plan to offer booster doses in the next months, abandoning mask mandates and “relaxing as if the pandemic is already finished.” Far too many countries are experiencing an increase in cases and hospitalizations, resulting in an oxygen shortage and a “wave of mortality” in areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, he said. “Vaccine nationalism,” Tedros added, “is ethically unacceptable and an inadequate public health policy against a respiratory virus that’s changing swiftly and becoming highly effective at transferring from human to human.” He claims that due to inequitable distribution of life-saving vaccines, variations are currently winning the race against vaccines. There are still millions of health-care workers who haven’t been vaccinated at this point in the epidemic, which Tedros described as “abhorrent”: “It doesn’t have to be this way moving ahead.”/nRead More

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