‘Shouldn’t be happening’: WHO tracking ‘worrying’ increase in deaths as Omicron surges
Global News
Countries should avoid taking a 'lemming' approach to lifting COVID-19 restrictions and instead carefully weigh their local situations, said one WHO official.
World Health Organization officials say scientists are tracking a “worrying” increase in COVID-19 deaths as the Omicron variant continues its spread around the globe.
“Since Omicron was first identified just 10 weeks ago, almost 90 million cases have been reported to WHO,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director-general, said during a press conference on Tuesday morning.
“We’re now starting to see a very worrying increase in deaths in most regions of the world.”
Tedros had warned just days ago that it would be “dangerous” for countries to assume that Omicron will be the final variant of concern to emerge from the pandemic, or that its rapid spread and highly infectious characteristics mean that “we are in the end game.”
The variant, first identified in late November 2021 by South African scientists, is now dominating the Delta variant in many regions of the world and is showing an increased ability compared with previous variants to infect people who are fully vaccinated.
Experts have long predicted that the sheer number of extra COVID-19 cases as a result of Omicron’s increased infectiousness would lead to a corresponding increase in deaths, even if the virus is not itself more deadly than previous variants.
U.S. deaths from COVID-19 hit an 11-month high on Sunday, according to a Reuters analysis.
Australia reported its deadliest day from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic on Jan. 28.
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