You can’t blame people to kind of put their guards down on the pandemic. They think the end is near. Thus, many have downplayed Covid-19 by now as nothing but “like the ordinary flu.”
Wait. Not so fast.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in the Philippines has issued a warning against the “dangerous” assumption that Omicron would bring the world to the pandemic endgame as new variants could still emerge. According to its representative in the country Dr. Rajendra Yadav: “We have a lot of uncertainties about the future evolution of this pandemic. It is very dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame.”
According to WHO, new variants could still emerge and these new variants could evade current countermeasures, may even become fully resistance to the current vaccines which will necessitate vaccine adaptations.
The explanation to the warning is the varying conditions across the globe. While vaccine supplies have risen across the world, some countries still have low vaccination coverage and high transmission of the virus, which he said could lead to new variants. Countries like Africa
In Africa, for instance, only 11 percent of the African population are fully vaccinated.
Less vaccination means more transmission in these countries , and more transmission means we have high chances of new variants emerging there. This can cross over to any country. What happens in other countries affects the Philippines too, because we cannot virus-proof our international borders, WHO said.
Bottomline is that if other countries have low vaccination coverage and high transmission of the virus, then it is likely there will be new variants.
