WHO: COVID emergency phase approaching an end, but Omicron transmission remains

The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that even though the Covid-19 pandemic emergency phase is "far closer" to being over, Omicron was still spreading widely and was still killing a lot of people.
The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated at a press conference here that "we are considerably closer to being able to claim that the emergency phase of the pandemic is finished, but we're not there yet."

Omicron has shown to be substantially more transmissible than its predecessor, Delta, and continues to cause significant mortality due to the intensity of transmission, which is the reason for.

While this is going on, "gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing, and vaccination are continuing to create the perfect conditions for a new variant of concern to develop that could cause severe mortality," Tedros warned.

Although more than 8,500 people died last week, statistics from the WHO reveal that the number of weekly deaths reported to them has been slightly declining over the previous five weeks.

When we have so many resources at our disposal to stop infections and preserve lives, it is "not acceptable three years into the pandemic," he said.

Omicron, of which over 500 sublineages are circulating, tends to produce less severe disease than earlier versions of concern, the WHO director acknowledged.

Due to earlier infection or vaccination, according to WHO estimates, at least 90% of the global population now has some level of protection against SARS-CoV-2.