The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to maintain surveillance of coronavirus infections and said the world is “blind” to how the virus is spreading due to falling rates of coronavirus infection.
Is the World Health Organization escaping the real health situation? It must be said that the general relaxation in the face of the coronavirus epidemic is a cause for concern because “many countries are reducing screenings, the WHO receives less and less information on transmission and sequencing,” explained Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a press conference at the headquarters of the United Nations Organization in Geneva.
\ud83c\udf0d, #COVID-19 Cases and deaths continue to fall, which is very good news. However, less testing in many countries blinds us to patterns of transmission and evolution. When it comes to a deadly virus, ignorance is not happiness. @WHO calls on countries to keep monitoring. pic.twitter.com/ND6tCEWJon
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 26, 2022
“It makes us increasingly blind to transmission and evolutionary patterns,” he continues. The WHO therefore believes that the process of returning to normal life is a little premature.
Especially since the epidemic is far from saying its last word. In fact, new subvariants of Omicron appear. The latest was named BA.2.12.1.
This new subvariant of Omicron was responsible for 29% of new COVID-19 infections nationwide last week, according to data reported Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is believed to be the source of 58% of reported infections in the New York area.
Between the month of March and April 20, subvariant BA.2.12.1 saw a nearly four-fold increase to explain nearly one in five new cases in the region, according to data released by the New York State Department of Health. https://t.co/u99qElqDN0
—Newsday (@Newsday) April 26, 2022
This subvariant has been recorded in at least 13 other countries, but the United States has the highest levels so far. Scientists say it spreads even faster than the Omicron variant, which is already classified as more contagious than Delta, for example.
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Covid – Omicron: new variants BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, New York gives alarm
New contaminations are increasing in places where values of the BA.2.12.1 subvariant are increasing significantly, such as in central New York. Indicators suggesting it’s overtaking other variants of the coronavirus, said Eli Rosenberg of the New York State Department of Health.