The Omicron variant has caused changes in the forecasts that were had for the Christmas and New Year celebrations in the world.
(What does the Government say about suspending the end of the year party by omicron).
According to the director of the World Health Organization, WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, countries must redouble their efforts to end the pandemic, and asked to cancel the New Year celebrations because it is better. “Celebrate late than celebrate now and regret later”, he exposed.
For the WHO this second year of the pandemic It was very hard since more than 3.5 million people died from covid-19, more even than in 2020.
“The year 2021 gave us many reasons to have hope, in the form of vaccines that undoubtedly saved many lives, but on the other hand the inequality in the distribution of doses also cost many lives”, he claimed.
(Yes, vaccinated and cured of covid can be infected with omicron).
The WHO points out that the coronavirus continues to cause about 50,000 deaths per week and “As omicron becomes the dominant variant we have to take extra precautions”added.
The expert pointed out that 2022 must be the year in which the pandemic ends.
The Omicron variant, whose spread is accelerating day by day around the world and is already present in 106 countries, can infect people who have been vaccinated against covid-19 or those who were infected in the past. In addition, this variant causes a more moderate disease than delta, the predominant variant throughout the world.
On December 31, it will be two years since the WHO received the first notification of cases of pneumonia of an unknown type detected in China, which turned out to be caused by a new coronavirus that has so far caused 5.5 million deaths and 272 millions of cases around the world.
CAUTION IN COLOMBIA
Although in Colombia 3 cases of the Omicrón variant have already been identified, it is possible that there are more, according to the National Institute of Health, Well, something similar happened with delta, first it was detected in travelers and there was a space in which no more cases were identified and progressively its growth began to be seen almost weeks later, it was not immediate.
“That could happen to us, or it could happen as expected at some point that the delta variant could cause outbreaks in other countries and that did not happen, or as it happened with mu, which affected us a lot but did not affect other countries in the same dimension in which it affected Colombia ”, said Franklyn Prieto, director in charge of the INS and director of epidemiological surveillance.
Regarding the symptoms, the expert pointed out that the clinical picture is much milder than with other variants, and that for the most part, those affected do not present the typical picture of fever, broken bones and cough. If not, it is one more picture of the common cold composed of a runny nose, headache, sore throat and general malaise.
(Ómicron eliminates 35% of business travel bookings.)
In Colombia, 66,297,622 doses have been distributed and 63,187,778 have been applied.
There are only 27,580,721 of complete schedules and 2,830,428 of booster doses have been applied.
The National Government in addition to inviting vaccination with booster doses in December since, for example, in the case of the educational sector, it will return to face-to-face treatment in 2022.
“We send a message of calm and importance in not letting our guard down in times of interactions such as December. It is necessary to understand that countries and regions of the world are in different periods of affectation, which can, without a doubt, be accelerated by the Omicron variant “said the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz. He also pointed out that the message is that “if the scheme has not been completed or has not been vaccinated, the interaction will be reduced this holiday season along with the importance of the permanent use of masks in family gatherings, as well as in private and public places if it is with other people.
“Self-care for ourselves and those around us is key to celebrating a Christmas and a New Year with the family, safe and preventing a new peak of infections in the country”, he asserted.
BRIEFCASE
