Half a million COVID deaths since Omicron, WHO laments

GBNEWS24DESK//

The World Health Organization lamented Tuesday that half a million Covid-19 deaths had been recorded since the Omicron variant was discovered, calling the toll “beyond tragic”.

The WHO’s incident manager Abdi Mahamud said that 130 million cases and 500,000 deaths had been recorded globally since Omicron was declared a variant of concern in late November, AFP reports.

It has since rapidly overtaken Delta as the world’s dominant Covid variant because it is more transmissible, though it appears to cause less severe illness.

“In the age of effective vaccines, half a million people dying, it’s really something,” Mahamud told a live interaction on the WHO’s social media channels.

“While everyone was saying Omicron is milder, (they) missed the point that half a million people have died since this was detected,” he said.

“It’s beyond tragic.”

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said the sheer number of known Omicron cases was “astounding”, while the true number would be much higher.

“It makes the previous peaks look almost flat,” she said.

“We’re still in the middle of this pandemic,” she said. “Many countries have not passed their peak of Omicron yet.”

Van Kerkhove said she was extremely concerned that the numbers of deaths had increased for several weeks in a row.

“This virus continues to be dangerous,” she said.