WHO crushes the owl Hope: “The end of the pandemic is near”

You want it or you don’t want it, in the end the WHO arrived. The Director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the night he explained that “the end” of the pandemic “is in sight”. “We haven’t gotten there yet”, she points out, but in short, not long. Given the data, it is good that the WHO has also opened this veil of “hope”. Declaration that in fact denies the Italian Health Minister, who no more than two weeks ago had repeated that “from 26 September, whatever happens, we will have to continue to deal with Covid”.

WHO data

According to the Organization, the victims of Covid globally have dropped to a minimum since March 2020, which is when all this basically began. Between 5 and 11 September last, there were 10,935 deaths in the world, or 22% less than the previous week. New infections are also down 28%. In short: cheers. The finish line is one step away.

Burioni spreads concern

Yet, yet not all that glitters is gold. According to Maria Rita Gismondo in fact “this is an announcement that perhaps we should have made a few months ago”. Then a gentleman sits at the top of the Italian Health and reaffirms that “Covid has not magically disappeared, he did not take a spaceship and ended up on Mars”. The country perhaps needs a breath of optimism, at least on the pandemic front given the troubles it will already have to face due to higher bills. and instead there are those who continue to blow on the fire of worry. The never domo Roberto Burionifor example, on social media he shared a study published in the Cell magazine according to which there is a variant of Omicron in circulation (BA.4-BA.5) that is more contagious, able to “infect people who have been vaccinated and / or cured “And even a greater pathogenity would be foreseeable”.

Bassetti’s replica

Not everyone agrees, of course. According to Gismondo, there are studies that deny the greater danger of the variants, but even here we have the usual rebound of analysis by scientists and virologists. As well as Matteo Bassetti he says he has “many doubts” about it: “This summer we had many patients with these Omicron variants, both hospitalized in the ward for problems other than Covid and followed up at home, I did not notice a greater severity”. What seems certain, however, is that now even the WHO sees the light at the end of the tunnel. And at least for a day we could rejoice.

Bad news. A study on the omicron 4/5 variant confirms the greater contagiousness, the ability to infect people vaccinated and / or cured (even from omicron 1 or 2) and unfortunately a greater pathogenicity is also expected. Get vaccinated and be careful indoors. pic.twitter.com/3FZPrQcTig

– Roberto Burioni (@RobertoBurioni) September 14, 2022

How is the vaccination campaign going?

Of course, there are two other factors to consider. First: the much heralded vaccination campaign for the fourth dose it is not going as hoped. Gimbe’s analysis ensures that the double booster coverage is firm at 18% of the official audience of 17.1 million possible candidates. Second: despite the regression of the pandemic, in Italy the bulletin of the dead continues to be high. Too many, even considering the number of vaccinated people. According to Bassetti, “on the count” something “didn’t work”. “We have reached the lowest number of Covid deaths – he told Adnkronos – but not in Italy, where the number of deaths is still significant, with too high numbers. The problem, then, is that either we didn’t understand how to handle the pandemic or these people didn’t die from Covid. Continuing to give these numbers for Italy is not a correct message that we give outside the country “.

Net of all this, today at least let’s toast the announcement of the WHO that sees the “light at the end of the tunnel” of the pandemic. Whatever the owl Hope says.