The World Health Organization (WHO) today unveiled an updated plan to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic that outlines strategies that, if implemented in 2022, would allow the world to end its “emergency” phase.
The plan includes three possible scenarios for how the virus will develop next year.
“As far as we know today, the most likely scenario is that the coronavirus (Covid-19) will continue to mutate, but the severity of the disease it causes decreases over time as immunity increases due to vaccination or previous illness,” he said. WHO Director General Tetros Antanom Gebregesous in a press conference.
In the baseline scenario, used as a working model by the WHO, the virus causes less severe outbreaks with periodic outbreaks of the virus as the immune system weakens. Vaccine boosters may be needed for people at higher risk. The virus is expected to follow a seasonal pattern, with outbreaks during the colder months, as is the case with the flu.
In the best WHO scenario, future variants of the virus will be “significantly less severe”, and protection against serious disease will last longer, without the need for booster vaccinations or significant changes to existing Covid-19 vaccines.
In the worst case scenario, the virus mutates into a new, highly contagious and deadly threat. In this scenario, vaccines are less effective, protection against serious illness or death is rapidly weakened, and significant modifications to existing vaccines are required, as well as a large-scale booster vaccination campaign for people in the so-called vulnerable population.
This is the third WHO report since the pandemic began. The head of the Organization estimates that it may be the last.
The World Health Organization calls on countries to continue to increase the potential for mass sampling in order to be able to detect any warning signs of significant changes in the virus. He also called for improvements in the detection of the syndrome after Covid-19 (long Covid) disease to monitor and reduce the number of cases of chronic disability after the end of the pandemic.
Countries should continue to perform diagnostic tests to detect SARS-CoV-2, which contribute to the detection of individual cases and the decision-making process to protect the community, the WHO said.
The Agency insists on the 70% target for the global population vaccination against Covid-19, with an emphasis on vulnerable groups.
It acknowledges, however, that existing vaccines are proving less effective than expected in reducing the transmission of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
To date, more than 11 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered worldwide. However, 36% of the Earth’s population remains unvaccinated.
Source: Capital
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