A pedestrian wearing a face mask walks past a street art mural by French street artist JBC, in tribute to healthcare workers depicting a nurse wearing a protective mask in relation to a disease coronavirus (COVID-19) on March 24, 2021 in Paris, France.
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Almost two years after the Covid-19 pandemic, reported daily infections are on the rise again as the omicron variant spreads rapidly around the world, in countries from the US and UK to South Africa and Australia. .
World Health Organization labeled omicron a variant of interest. While there are still many unknowns about it, WHO has warned that the variant is spread “significantly faster” than plain strain and could change the course of the pandemic.
However, “2022 must be the end of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said on Wednesday.
Pandemic data – such as confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths – may underestimate the real situation due to limitations in testing, reporting frequency, and quality of data collected. .
But based on the data available, here are four charts showing the state of the Covid pandemic as 2021 ends.
Omicron is dominating
The omicron variation has been found in about 100 countries, said WHO. The agency added that the number of Covid cases linked to omicrons is doubling every 1.5 to three days.
The number of cases increased, but the number of deaths decreased
The omicron variant has caused a new wave of infections globally. In Africa, daily confirmed cases rose from a seven-day moving average of about 3.14 parts per million in early November to 26.67 parts per million on Tuesday, according to an analysis by the archives. Our World in Data online archive.
During the same period, daily confirmed cases in the UK rose from a seven-day moving average of 603.38 parts per million to around 1,280 parts per million – a record high since the pandemic began. , analysis shows.
The number of infected people hospitalized has also increased in some countries. The United States, France and South Africa are among the countries that have recorded an increase in the number of weekly hospitalizations in the past month due to Covid-19, according to official statistics compiled by Our World in Data.
But the average number of confirmed daily Covid deaths is trending downward globally, an analysis by Our World in Data shows.
Scientists are still researching the severity of the infection caused by the omicron variant compared to previous strains of Covid.
Benjamin Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, said omicrons appear to cause “the same severity” as delta and other variants.
“But if you’ve been vaccinated, if you’ve had an infection before, you’re going to have some special protection against severe illness. And that means the omicrons in reality look milder,” said Cowling. told CNBC”Squawk Box Asia“in Monday.
He added: “It looks like a milder infection because of the immunity we have built up, not because the particular virus differs in its innate severity.
Vaccine inequality
Experts say the threat of omicrons – and future variants – has highlighted the importance of vaccinations in preventing serious illness. But the distribution of the Covid vaccine remains uneven.
In more than 30 countries, less than 10% of the population is fully immunized, according to data compiled by Our World in Data. Many of those countries are low-income countries in Africa, the data shows.
On the other hand, high-income countries are far ahead in immunizing their people and release enhanced photos, according to the data.
That gap could close over time with billions of doses of vaccine being produced each year, said Jerome Kim, director general of the International Vaccine Institute.
“We need to get the best vaccines we can, we need to use boosters if they’re indicated,” Kim told CNBC.Asian street signs” in the first day of this month.
“And then we need to use other methods including masks, distance, avoiding crowds and sanitation to reduce the total burden of infection in a country.”
WHO’s Tedros said that to end the pandemic next year, every country must vaccinate 70% of its population by mid-2022.
