The scientist has been in her position since 2019. She expects many more mutations, but perhaps less worrying variants of the coronavirus in the future.
(Photo: Reuters)
Geneva, Dusseldorf The senior scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Soumya Swaminathan, welcomes it when governments are already preparing for the transition of the corona pandemic into an endemic phase. “We expect that an immense number of people in the world will be infected with omicron and there will be cross-immunization to other variants,” Swaminathan told Handelsblatt. “That’s encouraging.”
The transition to an endemic phase will have a major impact on how the number of infections is handled, on testing and on hospital capacities. “We need these discussions now.” In 2022 there will be many millions of people in the world with better immunization protection – “because of the vaccinations and unfortunately because of the infections”.
It is not yet clear whether the reclassification can take place after the omicron wave. “We don’t know when and where the next variant will appear and how it will interact with omicron and delta,” said the scientist.
Read on now
Get access to this and every other article in the
Web and in our app free of charge for 4 weeks.
Continue
Read on now
Get access to this and every other article in the
Web and in our app free of charge for 4 weeks.
Continue