Variant ravages multiple continents
Weekly surge hits record high of 15 million infections across globe fueled by Omicron
As the World Health Organization sounds the alarm over the likelihood of a tidal wave of COVID infections in Europe, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is posing serious challenges to the economic revival of AsiaPacific countries such as Sri Lanka, and to the mental health of university students in North America.
The WHO has warned that more than half of the people in its European region will be infected with COVID-19 in the next two months as several countries report record numbers of new cases.
The region, which covers 53 countries in Europe and Central Asia, reported more than 7 million new cases in the first week of 2022, more than doubling over a two-week period.
Fifty of the countries have now reported cases of the new Omicron strain, which is quickly becoming the dominant variant in Western Europe and is now spreading in the Balkans, according to the WHO.
While the mortality rates remain stable, they are the worst in countries with high COVID-19 cases and lower vaccination rates.
“Today, the Omicron variant represents a new west to east tidal wave sweeping across the region, on top of the Delta surge that all countries were managing until late 2021,” Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said on Jan 11.
He cited a forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that at this rate, more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks.
Omicron is highly transmissible because its mutations enable it to adhere to human cells more easily, and it can infect even those who have been previously infected or vaccinated, according to the WHO, citing data in recent weeks.
On Jan 11, France reported a record 368,149 new cases, with the sevenday average staying at 280,000. On Jan 12, Germany reported 80,430 new infections.
Belgium, with a population of 11 million, reported an average of 21,874 new cases in the week to Jan 8, a hike of 96 percent from the previous week, government health authorities said on Jan 12.
While countries in Western Europe have higher vaccination rates, 20 countries in the region have vaccination rates below 50 percent, including the lowest of 15.2 percent for Kyrgyzstan, 22 percent for Bosnia and Herzegovina and 24 percent for Armenia.
The unprecedented scale of transmission of the Omicron variant has resulted in rising hospitalizations and threatens to overwhelm the health systems in many countries, according to the WHO.
On Jan 11, Poland became the latest European nation to record 100,000 deaths related to COVID-19, joining Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany that have hit the number.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said on Jan 11 that the agency had to change the epidemic curve in cases reported last week due to the explosive numbers — 15 million new cases and 43,461 deaths worldwide.
“Omicron is not mild and Omicron is not flu or the common cold, SARSCoV-2 is not endemic yet. Now is not the time to give up,” she said.
With the explosion of infections — by far it is the most cases reported in a single week — the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition, or TAG-CO-VAC, has said vaccines may need to be updated to ensure adequate protection — Xinhua reported.
TAG-CO-VAC also said that a vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine composition is unlikely to be sustainable.
Kluge said that how each country now responds must be informed by its “epidemiological situation, available resources, vaccination uptake and socioeconomic context”.
The strain over Omicron’s rapid spread is also sharply felt in pandemic-hit countries in the Asia-Pacific with ambitious economic recovery plans, including Sri Lanka, which is speeding up vaccinations for more age groups in line with its 2022 “Visit Sri Lanka Year” campaign.
The South Asian island country extended its vaccination drive to include children and teenagers aged 12 to 15 starting Jan 7, Sri Lankan Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said on Twitter.
Those in that age group will be administered Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, local health officials said.
The move “will help to keep the schools open and avoid disruption to their education”, wrote Chandima Jeewandara, director of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura’s Allergy, Immunology and Cell Biology Unit, in a tweet.
“Our children and their education should be our priority,” he said.
Vaccination cards have also been made mandatory to access public spaces in the country from the beginning of this year.
Anwar Hamdani, the COVID-19 coordinator and technical services director at the Ministry of Health, was quoted in the local Daily Mirror newspaper as saying that an Omicronfueled wave might emerge “if people fail to receive booster doses on time and comply with health practices”.
According to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health, 653 new cases were reported on Jan 12. The variant’s spread is likely to outpace Delta and other variants. A total of 593,725 cases have been reported in the nation, with 15,163 related deaths.
A worsening situation is likely to hamper the recovery of Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, which is recognized as crucial to rebuilding its economy. Last month, media reported that Sri Lanka was all set to declare 2022 as the “Visit Sri Lanka Year”, with the aim to receive 6 million tourists and create $10 billion in revenue by 2025.
Sri Lanka has been returning to normalcy while recording a rise in tourist arrivals particularly since November. Last year, Sri Lanka logged a total of over 150,000 tourist arrivals.
The quick recovery of Sri Lanka’s tourism is regarded as an effect of high vaccination rates, with China having played a positive role in helping the country obtain vaccines. By last week, nearly 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s population had been fully vaccinated with China’s Sinopharm, the leading vaccine administered.
In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a mental health crisis on campuses, exacerbated across the country by Omicron, with many colleges switching back to remote classes.
A study by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University reviewed data on 43,098 college students who sought treatment in the fall of 2020 at 137 counseling centers. While 72 percent said the pandemic had harmed their mental health, only 26 percent of students were concerned about the threat to their physical health from COVID-19.