Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says progress made on COVID-19 vaccines is quite cheering that global cure to the pandemic will soon be achieved.
According to Ghebreyesus, the progress “gives us all a lift and we can now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel”.
He however expressed concerned about the “growing perception that the pandemic is over” while in reality the virus is spreading fast in many areas and countries.
The WHO chief admitted that the development is currently putting enormous pressure on hospitals and healthcare workers across the world.
Going by available WHO statistics, the United States (US) is among the countries posting all-time highs in daily deaths this week along with Italy, which is undergoing a dramatic resurgence after it largely tamped down its earlier outbreak by enforcing a strict lockdown in the spring.
The daily global death toll in recent weeks reached its highest rate since the virus emerged in China late last year.
The US has averaged more than 1,800 deaths a day over the past week. This is amid President-elect Joe Biden’s claims that the Trump administration’s plan for distributing an approved coronavirus vaccine to the public lacks important details.
Biden said on Friday that “there’s no detailed plan that we’ve seen” for how to get vaccines out of a container, into syringes and into people’s arms.
He said he is working on an overall plan, adding that government infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci has been requested to be part of his COVID-19 team and to serve as his Chief Medical Adviser (CMA)
