In three weeks, number of world deaths from Covid-19 in 2021 will surpass all of 2020

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At the current rate, within three weeks, deaths from Covid-19 this year alone will exceed all those recorded in 2020, World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today.

The infections reported since the start of 2021 already exceed those recorded in the first year of the pandemic, adding the Organization’s head.

He also warned that, although there has been a third consecutive week of decline in cases, “the global situation is very fragile and no country can say it is safe.”

THE THREAT OF VARIANTS

He assured that for the moment, none of the variants that have emerged from the original coronavirus causing the pandemic have affected the vaccines or treatments being used, but emphasized that no one can guarantee that this will continue to be the case.

“The virus is constantly changing, and this could render the tools we have ineffective. We must be clear that the pandemic is not over and will not end until transmission is under control in all countries,” he added.

UNEQUAL ACCESS TO VACCINES

Tedros said that unequal access to vaccines threatens to perpetuate the pandemic, with three out of four doses so far having been applied in just 10 countries.

“A small number of countries that manufacture and purchase most of the vaccines control the fate of the rest of the world,” he denounced.

According to W.H.O. estimates, if vaccine administration had been more equitable from the start, the 1.5 billion doses inoculated to date would have protected every health worker and at-risk group on the planet.

“We could be in a much better situation,” lamented Tedros, who stressed that countries that have started vaccinating children and low-risk people “are doing so at the expense of health workers and vulnerable people in other countries.”

At the opening of the assembly, which runs until June 1, it was also reported that at least 115,000 healthcare workers have died from the coronavirus.

NEW TARGETS

The Director-general noted that the COVAX program, through which WHO and other organizations are trying to provide access to vaccines to resource-poor countries, has delivered 72 million doses to 125 countries.

“However, those doses have only been enough to immunize about one percent of the population in those countries,” Tedros said.

Given this, the Director-general set a target at the assembly that by September, at least 10 percent of the population in every country on the planet should have been vaccinated. This percentage should reach 30 percent by the end of the year.

“That means that by September, we need vaccines to immunize 250 million more people in low- and middle-income countries,” Tedros said.

To achieve these goals, he called on developed country members of W.H.O. to continue donating doses to COVAX so that none go to waste and on pharmaceutical companies to commit to donating half of their annual vaccine production to this solidarity distribution program.