COVID impact on health workers, systems worrying

THE World Health Organization has warned that the COVID-19 pan- demic is nowhere near over and with the incredi- ble growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge, which is why tracking and assessment remain critical.
Director General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus reported to WHO’s media briefing yesterday that last week, there were more than 18 million reported cases. And while the number of deaths remains stable for the moment, he said that WHO is concerned about the impact Omicron is having on already ex- hausted health workers and overburdened health systems.
“I remain particularly concerned about many countries that have low vaccination rates, as people are many times more at risk of severe illness and death if they’re unvaccinated. Omicron may be less severe, on average of course, but the narrative that it is mild disease is misleading, hurts the overall response and costs more lives. Make no mistake, Omicron is causing hospitalizations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities”.
Dr Ghebreyesus stressed that the virus is circulating far too intensely with many still vulnerable. He said for many countries, the next few weeks remain really critical for health workers
and health systems.
“I urge everyone to do
their best to reduce risk of infection so that you can help take pressure off the system. Now is not the time to give up and wave the white flag.
“We can still signifi- cantly reduce the impact of the current wave by sharing and using health tools effectively and implementing public health and social measures that we know work”.
The WHO chief further stressed that at a time of Omicron, it remains more important than ever to get vaccines to the unvacci- nated. He explained that vaccines may be less effective at preventing infection and transmission of Omicron than they were for previous variants, but they still are exceptionally good at preventing serious disease and death.
“New formulations of vaccines are being developed and assessed for how they perform against
Omicron and other strains. “I am concerned that unless that if we change the current model we’ll enter a second and even more destructive phase of vaccine inequity. We need to make sure we share current vac- cines equitably and we develop distributed manufacturing around the world. We can only beat this virus if we work together and share health tools equitably. It’s really that simple,” he said.