WHO cites Covid truce in Europe a day after warning against relaxing restrictions

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After urging caution in lifting restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus and saying that it is still too early to declare victory against Covid-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this Thursday (3) that Europe is experiencing a moment of truce in the pandemic.

Hans Kluge, director of the European division of the entity, defined the scenario as that of a “truce that can bring lasting peace”. The Belgian cited a set of three factors that would allow the European continent a “breath” after more than two years facing the health crisis.

The first is the high number of people vaccinated – according to the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), 74.4% of the continent’s inhabitants received at least the first dose of the immunizer, 70.4% completed the first vaccine cycle and 45.2% had already taken the booster dose.

The second factor mentioned by Kluge is the lower gravity of the omicron. While it is more contagious than other strains of the coronavirus, this variant can cause infections with milder symptoms, according to preliminary studies. There is, however, a concern from the WHO that this perception leads governments and populations to consider that control measures are no longer necessary – which would be a mistaken conclusion.

Finally, the director of the entity cites the approach of the end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, as lower temperatures tend to favor the transmission of respiratory diseases such as Covid-19. These three factors, for the Norwegian, represent a defense with which Europe will be able to respond to the resurgence of the virus more effectively than seen in the last two years.

“There is a unique opportunity to take control of the broadcast,” Kluge said, adding, however, a few caveats. This “truce” should only be maintained if immunity is preserved through the massive adherence of the population to vaccination campaigns and if countries remain vigilant about the emergence of other possible variants.

The European arm of the WHO groups 53 countries, including some that are geographically located in Central Asia. The bloc has, since the beginning of the pandemic, 147.7 million cases and 1.7 million deaths from Covid. In the last seven days, the group of countries registered 11.7 million new infections and 65.8 thousand deaths (respectively, 53% and 33.7% of the global total).

Since last month, several European countries have announced the partial or total relaxation of restrictions imposed to contain the transmission of the virus. The United Kingdom, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Austria, for example, returned — or have a date set for that — to abolish the mandatory use of masks and the vaccination passport.

This Thursday, it was the turn of the Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, to announce that, as of February 10, bars and restaurants will no longer have a limit on opening hours, and public meetings in closed places may again have more than 500 people. “It’s time to open up Sweden again,” she said. “Looking ahead, infection rates will remain high for some time, but as far as we can judge the worst consequences of contagions are already behind us.”

Entity says Africa needs to speed up vaccination by 6 times

If in Europe the WHO’s assessment is of relative tranquility, the entity outlined a very different scenario for Africa this Thursday. Botswana Matshidiso Moet, director for the continent, said it was urgent to speed up the pace of vaccination by at least six times.

Only 11% of Africans are fully immunized, a much lower average than the global average. According to Moeti, about 6 million people are getting doses a week on the continent, “but that number needs to increase exponentially, to 36 million weekly, to put countries on the path to beating this pandemic.”

She also stressed that Africans “should not become complacent” with reports that the omicron in general causes milder cases of Covid than previous variants.

“We’re seeing signs that people’s understanding is that this virus is spreading very fast, but it’s not very lethal, and so some will think, ‘why bother?'” she said.

In a separate event, the director of the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, issued a new warning for countries not to go too far in relaxing restrictions – something similar to what the WHO said on Wednesday in relation to Europe.

Source: Folha

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