Omicron sub-variant BA.5 remains dominant in every global region, with waves of infection shortening in time but increasing in transmissibility and speed. What can we therefore expect after our Northern hemisphere summer holidays as we head toward colder climes?
“Living with COVID-19 doesn’t mean pretending the pandemic is over. If you go walking in the rain without an umbrella, pretending it’s not raining won’t help you… Likewise, pretending a deadly virus is not circulating is a huge risk” (i)
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO)
Europe is now approaching its third winter of COVID-19 pandemic and scientists and senior WHO officials are warning us to brace for yet further spikes in COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths.
Variant B.1.1.529, known as Omicron, has been the dominant global Variant Of Concern (VOC) since late last year. It is highly divergent with a high number of mutations. Its subvariants BA.5 and BA.4 have proven especially pervasive, being more transmissible than their predecessors, and in the last 30 days Omicron has accounted for 90.1% of cases sequenced, with the remaining 9.9% presumed also to be Omicron.
Adam Kucharski, epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine urges us to set aside the idea that the pandemic is over. He and other experts see COVID turning into an endemic threat that continues to cause a high burden of disease. (ii)
While all global regions have seen a general fall in weekly cases, Hans Kluge, Director of WHO’s Office for Europe recently warned the region is projected to reach 250 million cases in following weeks after it recorded a third of all global deaths last week i. Indeed, the Russian Federation reported 288,580 new cases last week - an increase of 23%, perhaps denoting the start of things to come?
In the southern hemisphere, in Taiwan, new daily infections have exceeded 30,000 for three consecutive days; a trend predicted to peak at 60,000 around mid-September.