Covid-19: Omicron’s “worst surge” looms, Gates warns; “Another storm coming”, says WHO
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: In the direst warnings yet, Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates has warned that the world could enter the worst phase of the pandemic as the Omicron variant will cause the “worst surge” the planet has seen so far.
In a related development, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that “another storm is coming.”
In a series of tweets, Gates said on Tuesday he canceled most of his holiday plans after his close friends were infected with the Omicron variant. “Omicron is spreading faster than any virus in history. It will soon be in every country in the world,” he said, according to the media reports on Wednesday.
Pointing out that the only “big unknown” is how lethal the variant is, Gates claimed: “Even if it’s only half as severe as Delta, it will be the worst surge we have seen so far because it’s so infectious.”
According to him, the fresh pandemic wave because of Omicron would last less than three months.
“If there’s good news here, it’s that Omicron moves so quickly that once it becomes dominant in a country, the wave there should last less than 3 months. Those few months could be bad, but I still believe if we take the right steps, the pandemic can be over in 2022.”
Omicron, first detected in South Africa and declared as a “variant of concern” by the WHO in November, has now penetrated some 110 countries.
WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated there was no evidence that the variant was “spreading significantly faster” than the previous dominant version, Delta.
The global healthcare watchdog’s chief urged people to cancel some of their holiday plans to protect public health, as the Omicron variant spreads globally. “An event canceled is better than a life canceled,” said Ghebreyesus, adding that “difficult decisions” must be made.
Meanwhile, a top WHO official in Europe urged governments on Tuesday to prepare for a significant surge in coronavirus cases across the continent due to the Omicron variant, which is already dominant in several countries. “We can see another storm coming”, WHO Europe regional Director, Dr. Hans Kluge, said at a press conference in Vienna.
Within weeks, Omicron will dominate in more countries of the region, pushing already stretched health systems further to the brink, he said.
Omicron has so far been detected in at least 38 of the WHO European region’s 53 members, Dr. Kluge added, noting that it is already the dominant variant in the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Portugal.
Last week, 27,000 people died from coronavirus in the region and an additional 2.6 million cases were reported, he said.
Although these cases include all variants, not just Omicron, he noted this figure is 40 percent higher than during the same period last year.
The sheer volume of new Covid-19 infections could lead to more hospitalizations and widespread disruption to health systems and other critical services, he said.
Dr. Kluge said 89 percent of those with confirmed Omicron infections in Europe reported symptoms common with other coronavirus variants, including cough, sore throat, and fever. The variant has mostly been spread by young people in their 20s and 30s in the region, and its doubling rate is every 1.5 to 3 days, he added.
