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The World Health Organization (WHO) has reiterated the importance of getting 70 percent of the world’s population vaccinated as soon as possible, in order to prevent new variants of Covid-19 from being produced, and has insisted that quarantines must be 14 days.
This has been expressed by the organization’s epidemiologist, Abdi Mahamud, at a press conference in Geneva (Switzerland), held this Tuesday, in which he warned that countries will not be able to “accelerate” in their escape route from the pandemic while Omicron follow spreading with the same “intensity” as delta.
The expert explained that before the Christmas holidays, some 128 countries They had reported cases of Ómicron and he pointed out that they still do not have enough data “to say that Ómicron is milder than other variants of the coronavirus.”
In this sense, he stressed that vaccination is essential to deal with the virus.
Various studies, to which Mahamud has referred, show that Ómicron mainly affects the upper respiratory tract, which causes milder symptoms, compared to other variants that affected the lungs. «The challenge is the vaccination of the most vulnerable populations. The virus it multiplies in crowded, non-ventilated, and unvaccinated environments. These types of environments are the ideal places for the Covid-19 mutation. We have already seen it with beta, we see it with delta and we observed it with Ómicron ”, he stated.
On the other hand, the epidemiologist has detailed that in most people, the virus disappearsbetween five and seven days after of the appearance of the first symptoms and depending on your immunological situation.
For this reason, the WHO recommends maintaining quarantines for 14 days although they understand that in some countries, such as Spain, it has been reduced to a week of isolation.
»States have to make decisions about the duration of the quarantine based on their individual situation. It is logical to keep the number of cases as low as possible in places where these are already rare, but in places where there are many, there are competing interests, such as keeping the countries functioning, which could justify more quarantines. short, “he stressed.
In relation to the fluron coinfection, the expert has dismissed the possibility of it becoming a new virus, since “they are two different viruses that use different receptors to attack the body.”
50% more cases in America
During the last week of 2021, cases in America increased 50 percent and deaths increased 11 percent, according to the latest data from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
During the period between December 19 and 25, more than half of the countries and territories in the region reported an increase in cases of more than 20 percent. The Omicron variant was reported in 27 countries and territories in the Americas in the last week of 2021. The three countries that registered the highest number of new cases were the United States, Canada and Argentina.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism