Ending COVID-19 soon is “unrealistic,” said the World Health Organization official

GENEVA – A senior World Health Organization official said on Monday that it was ‘premature’ and ‘unrealistic’ to think that the pandemic could have ended by the end of the year, but that the recent arrival of effective vaccines will at least reduce the number of hospitalizations and death.

The world’s only focus right now should be to keep COVID-19 transmission as low as possible, said Dr. Michael Ryan, Director of the WHO Emergency Program.

“If we’re smart, we can end the hospitalizations and deaths and tragedy associated with this pandemic by the end of the year,” he said during the press conference.

Ryan said WHO was reassured by new data that many of the approved vaccines appear to help curb the explosive spread of the virus.

“If the vaccines start to affect not only death and not only hospitalization, but also have a significant impact on transmission dynamics and transmission risk, then I think we will get this pandemic under control more quickly.”

But Ryan warned against complacency, saying nothing was guaranteed in a developing epidemic.

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“Right now, the virus is in control,” he said.

The WHO Director General, meanwhile, said it was “regrettable” that younger and healthier adults in some rich countries are more likely to be vaccinated against the coronavirus than high-risk health workers in developing countries.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said immunizations provided by the UN-backed effort COVAX began this week in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, but regretted that this happened just three months after countries like Britain, the US and Canada began vaccinating their own populations .

“Countries are not in a race with each other,” he said. “This is a very common race against the virus. We are asking countries not to endanger their own people. We are asking all countries to participate in a global effort to suppress the virus everywhere.”

But the WHO stopped criticizing countries moving to vaccinate younger and healthier populations rather than donating their doses to countries that have not yet been able to protect their most vulnerable people.

“We cannot tell individual countries what to do,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO advisor.

Tedros also noted that for the first time in seven weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases increased last week, after six consecutive weeks of declining numbers. He described the increase as “disappointing,” but said it was not surprising.

Tedros said WHO was working to better understand why the number of cases was increasing, but that part of that spike appeared to be caused by the “relaxation of public health measures.”

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London.