Keep your mask on, stay isolated and get ready for another round of vaccines. The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) is determined that despite other competing global concerns including war, famine, floods, inflation, and soaring energy prices, coronavirus must remain at the forefront of public consciousness.
To that end the U.N. body issued another caution Thursday saying social restrictions plus mass vaccination campaigns must not be wound back under any circumstances because current case rates are the “tip of the iceberg,” Reuters reports.
The W.H.O.s warning came 48-hours after Pfizer and partner BioNTech approached U.S. regulators renewing their call for authorization to administer a fourth coronavirus shot as a booster for seniors, as Breitbart News reported, even as Americans are ditching their masks as they turn their back on restrictions.
The latest coronavirus surge is caused by a combination of factors, including the highly transmissible Omicron variant and its BA.2 sublineage, and the wider international lifting of public health and social measures, the W.H.O. outlined.
“These increases are occurring despite reductions in testing in some countries, which means the cases we’re seeing are just the tip of the iceberg,” W.H.O.’s head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing.
The W.H.O. chief pointed to low vaccination rate and “huge amount of misinformation” to explain the rise in infection rates.
He said new infections jumped by eight percent globally compared to the previous week, with 11 million new cases and just over 43,000 new deaths reported from March 7-13. It is the first rise since the end of January.
The biggest jump includes South Korea and China, where cases rose by 25 percent and deaths by 27 percent.
The W.H.O.’s Maria Van Kerkhove added BA.2 appears to be the most transmissible variant so far.
However, there are no signs that it causes more severe disease and no evidence that any other new variants are driving the rise in cases.