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WHO Experts Assess The Current COVID Pandemic Situation Worldwide
To Be Blunt-“The
Global Situation Is…We’re Not In A Good Place”
An early July press
conference held with the leaders of the World Health Organization
reveals that “the world is at a perilous point in this pandemic,”
according to the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The reasons for this gloomy assessment are multiple.
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The world has just recorded over 4 million deaths
and this number is a likely an underestimate of the overall toll. |
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Countries in every region are seeing sharp spikes
in cases and hospitalizations. These are causing an acute shortage
of oxygen and driving a wave of deaths in parts of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America. |
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A handful of nations have taken the lion’s share of
the available vaccines. WHO considers this morally indefensible
and points out this “vaccine nationalism” may actually be an
ineffective strategy against a respiratory virus since it is being
allowed to circulate internationally and mutate into more
dangerous variants. |
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Millions of health care workers have still not been
vaccinated. WHO calls this “abhorrent.” |
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Some countries which have had the opportunity to
vaccinate their adult populations are now considering vaccinations
for children. WHO considers this younger population to be a lower
priority than older populations in other countries which have not
had the opportunity to be vaccinated. WHO would like to see
sharing of these potential pediatric doses to other parts of the
world where the doses are needed much more. A similar argument
could be made against using limited supplies of vaccine to provide
booster doses to persons already vaccinated. |
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Increasing
Incidence
An increase in COVID
cases has been occurring in all regions of the world except the
Americas as of the beginning of July. The rates of increase are 17% in
Africa, 16% in the Eastern Mediterranean, 33% in Europe, a 9% increase
in Southeast Asia, and a 10% increase in the Western Pacific.
Looking at individual countries in the Americas, there are more than
two dozen countries that have epidemic curves that are almost vertical
right
now.
"...We need to be blunt when we need to be blunt,” said Maria Van
Kerkhove, WHO’s Technical Lead on COVID-19. She added, “The global
situation is…We’re not in a good place…This is not the situation we
should be in when we have tools at hand.”
Factors Driving
Transmission
In recapping the
situation, Van Kerkhove said there are four major factors that are
currently driving COVID transmission.
1. The virus and its
properties, now including more transmissible variants, are widespread
throughout the world with three of the four variants (Delta, Alpha,
and Beta) to be found in over 100 countries each, and Gamma in 74
countries.
2. Increasing social
mobility of people (gatherings of all types and sizes) around the
world. WHO is urging countries to open carefully while paying
attention to proper risk management. WHO is asking governments not to
lose the gains that have been made.
3. Reduced or
inappropriate use of public health and social measures. There appears
to be a desire on the part of some governments to shift more of the
focus for controlling risks on personal responsibility rather than the
dictates of government.
4. The inequitable and
uneven distribution of vaccines.
Said Dr Tedros, “From
a moral, epidemiological, or economic point of view, now is the time
for the world to come together to tackle this pandemic collectively.”
That means funding to scale up the equitable manufacturing and
distribution of health tools and increasing vaccination rates to 40%
by the end of 2021 and reaching 70% of people in all countries by
2022. ■
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