WHO WARNS COVID-19 ‘FAR FROM OVER’

Sat 19 March 2022:

The UN health agency has previously announced that the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year but it would depend on how quickly we meet its target to vaccinate 70% of the population in each country, among other factors, The AP reported.

Asked by a journalist at a Geneva media briefing about the timing of the pandemic’s end, Margaret Harris stated it was “far from over”.

“We are definitely in the middle of the pandemic,” she added.

After more than a month of decline, COVID cases started to increase around the world last week, the WHO said, with lockdowns in Asia and China’s Jilin province battling to contain an outbreak.

A combination of factors was causing the increases, including the highly transmissible Omicron variant and its cousin the BA.2 sub-variant, and the lifting of public health and social measures, the WHO added.

China has reported two new deaths from COVID-19 on Saturday – its first fatalities related to the virus since January 2021 – as the country battles a surge in Omicron cases.

Both deaths occurred in the Northeastern province of Jilin, which has been hit the hardest during the current wave, the National Health Commission (NHC) announced. It didn’t say how old the deceased patients were or whether they had any underlying diseases.

The new fatalities bring the overall death toll to 4,638 in China, which implemented a strict “zero-COVID strategy” with swift lockdowns and mass testing since the start of the pandemic in Wuhan in late 2019.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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