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WHO’s emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan said the accelerating infections of the Delta variant around the world meant it was too soon to abandon all precautions.
“The idea that everyone is protected, and it’s ‘Kumbaya’ and everything goes back to normal, I think right now is a very dangerous assumption anywhere in the world, and it’s still a dangerous assumption in the European environment,” he told reporters during a briefing from Geneva.
“We would ask governments at this moment not to lose the gains you’ve made.”
Many countries have reimposed lockdowns and authorities are rushing to step up the campaign to dispense shots.
At the same time, the disaster has exposed the gap between the haves and the have-nots, with vaccination drives barely getting started in Africa and other desperately poor corners of the world because of extreme shortages of shots.
The US and other wealthy countries have agreed to share at least 1 billion doses with struggling countries.
The US has the world’s highest reported death toll, at more than 600,000, or nearly one in seven deaths recorded in that time frame, followed by Brazil at more than 520,000, though the real numbers are believed to be much higher in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro has long downplayed the virus.
The variants, uneven access to vaccines and the relaxation of precautions in wealthier countries are “a toxic combination that is very dangerous”, warned Ann Lindstrand, a top immunisation official at the World Health Organisation.
Instead of treating the crisis as a “me-and-myself-and-my-country” problem, she said, “we need to get serious that this is a worldwide problem that needs worldwide solutions”.
“Vaccine equity is the greatest immediate moral test of our times,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement, marking the gloomy milestone.
Gravediggers carry the coffin of 89-year-old Irodina Pinto Ribeiro, who died from COVID-19 related complications, at the Inhauma cemetery in Rio de Janeiro in June.Credit:AP
“It is also a practical necessity. Until everyone is vaccinated, everyone is under threat.
“The tragic loss of 4 million people to this pandemic must drive our urgent efforts to bring it to an end for everyone, everywhere.”
AP, with Reuters