Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s emergency program, said this week that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – including two more easily transmitted strains of the deadly virus – is “not necessarily the big one” when looking at potentially worse future pandemics.
The new variants are called B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 and, according to reports, could influence the current course of the pandemic.
What are the details?
According to Newsweek, Ryan said the COVID-19 pandemic “isn’t necessarily the big one.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic is “very serious,” the worst may not have happened yet.
Ryan, who made the comments at a briefing on Monday, said, “This pandemic has been very serious, has spread around the world extremely quickly, it has hit every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one.”
He added, “This virus is highly transmissible … and it is killing people and it has robbed so many people of loved ones. But the current death rate is fairly low compared to other emerging diseases. This is a wake-up call.”
Ryan pointed out that the planet is in a “fragile” state and that global society is “increasingly complex”.
“These threats will continue,” he warned. “If there is one thing we have to get out of this pandemic with all the tragedy and loss is that we have to get our case in order, we have to prepare for something more serious in the future. In this we have to honor those. that we lost by getting better at what we do every day. “
What else?
According to Newsweek, more than a dozen countries around the world have reported COVID-19 cases caused by the new affected variants, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Netherlands, Singapore , South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
“Neither strain has been detected in the US, but last week the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the UK variant” could already be in the United States without being detected, “the outlet reported.
Monday, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Special Pathogens Unit at Boston Medical Center, told CNBC that the variant may have only been overlooked in the US due to its current testing capacity.
“To find that species, we need to take a percentage of the diagnosed samples and do a thorough genetic analysis, and [in] in the US, our capacity was not spectacular, ”she explained, pointing to a CDC report earlier in December.
“If the tension is here, we might miss it because the holes in us are just too wide,” explained Bhadelia.