Celebrate Christmas later
WHO Head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus believes that the best strategy in the coming holiday period is to cancel Christmas and New Year’s plans and celebrate later. The reason was the rapid increase in the incidence of a new variant of the coronavirus “Omicron”.
According to him, the fastest way to return to normal life is to “make the difficult decisions necessary to protect yourself and others,” which will often be associated with a change of New Year’s plans.
“We are all tired of this pandemic, we all want to spend time with friends and family, we all want to return to normal life,” said the head of the WHO. — In some cases, this will mean the cancellation or postponement of events, for example, we had to cancel a reception that we planned to hold with you (journalists) today. But canceling an event is better than canceling a life. It’s better to cancel now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and then grieve.”
Tedros said on Monday that there is convincing evidence that Omicron is spreading faster than Delta, and the probability of infection with a new variant is higher even for those who have been fully vaccinated and had covid before.
Sumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist, noted that based on the available data, it is unreasonable to consider the course of Omicron to be milder than previous variants, and added that all health systems in the world will experience increased stress as the number of cases increases.
Tedros believes that the pandemic could end in 2022 if 70% of the world’s population is vaccinated by the middle of next year.
Quarantine – an extreme measure?
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization does not support large-scale isolation because of the economic consequences and its impact on mental health.
Dr. Margaret Harris, a WHO health specialist, said in an interview with Sky News that the most important thing that can be done to combat the new variant of coronavirus is to get vaccinated.
The Ministry of Health has included vaccination against covid in the national vaccination calendar
When asked if the WHO wants people to cancel the celebration of Christmas and New Year, Harris replied that the head of the WHO was referring to major events, in particular, the very reception for journalists.
Ordinary people, according to her, should think about who will come to them for the holiday, whether they wear masks and whether they are vaccinated, as well as about other preventive measures — in particular, to ventilate the room. According to her, vaccines really protect, including vulnerable people, from going to the hospital and from death.
When asked what are the chances of getting infected with Omicron, but not getting to the hospital, she replied: “We hope that this is the case, especially among vaccinated populations. That’s why we say vaccination is key.”