The World Health Organization (who) announced on Tuesday that half a million covid-1 deaths have been recorded since the discovery of the mutant Omicron of the coronavirus, describing the toll as “more than tragic”.
AFP quoted the director of the organization’s accident management Abdi Mahmoud that 130 million injuries and 500 thousand deaths have been recorded in the world since the announcement of Omicron, an alarming mutation in late November.
Since then, the mutant Omicron has rapidly overtaken Delta to become the world’s fastest-spreading Omicron, although its symptoms appear to be less severe.
“In the age of effective vaccines, half a million people die, it’s really extraordinary,”Mahmoud said in a conversation with the public via Who social media accounts.
Live Q&A on #COVID19 and Omicron sub-variant BA.2 with Dr @mvankerkhove and @DrAbdiMahamud. #AskWHO https://t.co/NVQMa8HHk7
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 8, 2022
“While everyone was saying that Omicron was lighter, they missed that half a million people had died since it was discovered,” he said, describing it as “more than tragic”.
Maria van Kerkhoff, head of who’s covid-19 technical team, said the sheer number of Omicron infections was staggering, and the real numbers might be much higher than those known.
She considered that Omicron “makes previous peaks look almost flat”.
“We are still in the midst of this epidemic. I hope we are coming to an end”, explaining that “many countries have not yet exceeded the peak of Omicron”.
Van Kerkhove expressed great concern regarding the rise in the number of deaths for several weeks in a row, stressing that “this virus remains dangerous”.
The World Health Organization is tracking four subspecies of the mutant Omicron. And while the subspecies was “P. A.”.1 “is dominant, the” PIA.2 ” more infectious and is expected to account for an increasing share of Omicron infections.
Van Kerkhoff said there was no indication yet that “Baa.2 ” cause more severe symptoms, but stressed that evidence collection is still “in the early stages”.
Mahmoud said it was not yet known if he had been infected with”P. A.”.1 ” and ” Pia.2 ” is possible at the same time.
The covid-19 pandemic has officially claimed the lives of more than 5,748,498 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to an AFP count on Tuesday.
According to the website World Health Organization The United States topped the number of deaths in the world by regarding 900 thousand deaths, followed by Brazil by more than 600 thousand, then India by more than 500 thousand, Russia by more than 330 thousand, Mexico by more than 309 thousand, Peru by more than 209 thousand and Britain by more than 158 thousand deaths.
