On Feb 1, the WHO Director-General warned of a start in ‘a very worrying increase in deaths’ in most regions of the world and since ‘Omicron was first identified just 10 weeks ago, almost 90 million cases have been reported to WHO - more than were reported in the whole of 2020’. Read more
While the Omicron variant BA.1 (including lineage BA.1.1) has accounted for over 96 percent of sequences submitted to GISAID to Jan 31, the WHO is pressing for prioritised investigations into the characteristics of BA.2, including transmissibility, immune escape properties and virulence’ after a relative increase of the variant was observed in multiple countries. Late last week, the UKHSA reported in its Technical Briefing 35 that in early analysis, the apparent growth advantage of BA.2 over the original Omicron variant ‘is currently substantial’.
In the latest WHO weekly update, on a regional level, the largest increase (up 37 percent) in new COVID-19 case numbers was reported by the Western Pacific, driven by a rise of 73 percent in Japan and 65 percent in Australia (which also recorded a 31 percent increase in deaths).
In related news –
- According to Our World in Data, in just over a year, more than 10 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered around the globe and 61.1 percent of the world’s population has had at least one dose of an approved vaccine. But, ‘only 10% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose’.
- Two articles from the journal Nature: ‘COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmless’ Read more and 'Where did Omicron come from? Three key theories' Read more
- The national vaccine safety system AusVaxSafety data on children aged five to 11 years receiving the Pfizer vaccine.
- An ABC News article sums up ‘What it might mean to be COVID-normal’.
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