The World Health Organisation is urging governments to reinstate Covid measures like masking and ventilation as its leader speaks of concerns over an “increasing trend of deaths”.
As the British government, along with many others of wealthy countries, have all but abandoned coronavirus restrictions, the WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said the pandemic is “nowhere near over”.
It comes as new ONS figures have today showed that more than 200,000 people in the UK have had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate since the pandemic began.
Infections and hospital admissions are once again on the rise, driven by the coronavirus subvariant Omicron BA.2. Experts have warned that new variants can re-infect even those with some form of antibody immunity, in a matter of weeks.
Amid a spike in Covid transmission and increasing hospitalisations, Dr Ghebreyesus urged governments to “deploy tried and tested measures like masking, improved ventilation and test and treat protocols”.
"I am concerned that cases of Covid-19 continue to rise - putting further pressure on stretched health systems and health workers," he said.
"I am also concerned about the increasing trend of deaths."
Dr Ghebreyesus urged governments to regularly review and adjust their Covid-19 response plans based on changing situations, Sky News reports.
One of the more concerning variants and subvariants being tracked by the WHO was BA.2.75, nicknamed the centaurus.
Scientists believe the Covid strain, which was first discovered in May in India, may be able to spread rapidly and infect people regardless of immunity from vaccines and antibodies.
Governments were now facing several “interlinked” challenges around their response to coronavirus, Dr Ghebreyesus said, including the Omicron sub-variants and reduced testing and sequencing.
He went on to explain that there was a disconnect in Covid-19 risk perception between scientific communities, political leaders and the general public.
Another challenge was communicating risk and building community trust in health tools, as well as public health social measures like masking, distancing and ventilation, he said.
The pandemic was “nowhere near over”, he said, adding that we were in a better position than at the beginning of the pandemic to push back.
While progress had been made in the form of tools preventing hospitalisations and deaths, these should not be taken for granted.
Dr Ghebreyesus urged governments to regularly review and adjust their Covid-19 response plans based on changing situations.
The idea of restrictions being brought back in the UK was raised on Tuesday if an increase in cases worsens the backlog facing the NHS.
The WHO’s warning came just days after a SAGE advisor blasted the Tories for failing to take the urgent action needed to stop huge numbers of hospitalisations and unnecessary deaths.
Britain could grind to a standstill as Covid-19 cases surge - but the government’s policy is to ‘shut your eyes and let it rip,’ Susan Michie has warned.
Ms Michie fears the make-shift cabinet will continue to sit on its hands as 350,000 new cases are reported every day next week, according to leading forecaster the ZOE Covid study app.
Recent stats show that 2.7m people are infected across the UK with one in 16 carrying the virus in the worst hit areas.
Susan, the Professor of Health Psychology at University College London, slammed PM Boris Johnson ’s lame duck government.
She said: “We don’t have a public health policy for Covid right now and if we don’t act, we’ll get variants that are even more infectious and these will lead to increased hospitalisations and deaths.F
“The number of people with long Covid will increase significantly beyond the current two million and the country will be continuously disrupted with some sectors in danger of grinding to a standstill in the Autumn.”
Ms Michie is calling for the government to invest in better ventilation and air filtration systems in schools and public buildings.
She wants ministers to encourage people to socialise outdoors, wear high quality masks indoors and for more support to be offered to those that are off sick.
The expert adds we need to urgently revive the vaccination campaign and bring back free Covid-19 testing.
