Soon humanity will pass 60% of the way in the fight against COVID-19. However, unexpected obstacles may still be ahead, so it is premature to predict the end of the pandemic. This was stated in an interview published on Sunday for the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick, the chief researcher of the World Health Organization (WHO) Sumya Swaminathan.
Asked where humanity is now, “if you compare a pandemic to a marathon,” she said: “I hope we will overcome 60% of the route soon. However, we may have to climb another unexpected mountain.”
“It would be premature to say that we will cross the [finish line] soon, that’s not the case,” Swaminathan said. She explained that “there are too many unknowns ahead”, and among them the unexpected appearance of new variants of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
In this regard, the Chief Researcher drew attention to the significant gap in the coverage of the population with vaccination against COVID-19 in different countries and regions of the world. In particular, in some countries 70-80% of the population is vaccinated, and in Africa the vaccination rate is less than 4%. “The longer we put up with this situation, the higher the risk of new variants of [coronavirus],” she concluded.