Omicron continues to sweep the world.
Last week, there were more than 18 million reported cases.
The number of deaths remains stable for the moment, but we are concerned about the impact
Omicron is having on already exhausted health workers and overburdened health systems.
In some countries, cases seem to have peaked, which gives hope that the worst of this latest
wave is done with, but no country is out of the woods yet.
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 are unvaccinated.
Omicron may be less severe, on average of course, but the narrative that it is a 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.
The virus is circulating far too intensely with many still vulnerable.
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 significantly 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.
Now is not the time to give up on the strategy.
We're hearing a lot of people suggest that Omicron is the last variant, that is that
it's over after this.
And that is not the case, because this virus is circulating at a very intense level around
the world.
You will see in our weekly epidemiologic update that will be published in a few hours that
there's another 20 percent increase in cases in the last seven days, with almost 19 million
cases that have been reported to us.
And again, that's a true underestimate of what is actually circulating around.
And the deaths are holding steady around 45,000 deaths per week, and that shouldn't be happening
because we have tools at hand.
There's no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters;
no evidence at all.
So, this is why the SAGE, which is our technical expert body that makes policy recommendations,
has been meeting and will continue to meet, will meet later this week to consider the
specific question of how should countries think about giving boosters to their populations
with a view to protecting people, with a view to reducing deaths.
We understand there are a number of species that can be infected with SARS-CoV-2.
And then of course, there's the possibility, we call that a reverse zoonosis, it goes from
humans back to animals, and then it's possible for the animals to reinfect humans.
That risk remains low, but it is something that we are constantly looking at; because
what we don't want, is to have - as this virus circulates, it has the opportunity to infect
people as well as animals.
And so, this is something we need to have better surveillance on, looking at around
the world, not only which animals are susceptible, but to track this in animals over time.