Dr Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s emergency program, said this week that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – including two more easily transmitted strains of the deadly virus – is not necessarily the biggest when a possible future pandemic is considered.
The new variants are called B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 and can reportedly affect the current course of the pandemic.
What are the details?
According to Newsweek, Ryan said the COVID-19 pandemic was just “not necessarily the big one.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘very severe’, the worst may not have happened yet.
Ryan, who made the remarks during a Monday briefing, said: “This pandemic was very severe, spread very quickly around the world, it has affected every corner of this planet. But it is not necessarily the big one. ”
He added: “This virus is very contagious … and it kills people and it has deprived so many people of loved ones. But its lethal mortality rate is pretty low compared to other emerging diseases. It is a wake-up call.”
Ryan pointed out that the planet is in a “fragile” state and that global society is becoming “increasingly complex”.
“These threats will continue,” he warned. “If there is one thing we must take out of this pandemic with all the tragedies and loss, it is that we must recover, we must prepare for something that may be even worse in the future. In this we must honor those we have lost. by getting better at what we do every day. ‘
What else?
According to Newsweek, more than a dozen countries around the world have reported COVID-19 cases caused by the new, involving variants, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, the Netherlands , Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
“No strain has been detected in the US, but last week the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the British variant ‘could already be in the United States without being detected’,” the office said.
Dr Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Special Pathogens Unit at Boston Medical Center, told CNBC on Monday that the variant may have been overlooked only in the US due to its current testing capability.
“To find the strain, we need to take a percentage of the samples that are diagnosed and do deep genetic analyzes, and [in] in the US, our capacity was not spectacular, ”she explained, pointing to a CDC report from earlier in December.
“If the tension is here, we can only miss it because the holes in our net are too wide,” Bhadelia explained.